


The Recruit.

by steeleye



Series: The Life of Zoe Smith. [2]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Action/Adventure, Gen, Humor, Sci-Fi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-23
Updated: 2013-08-29
Packaged: 2017-12-24 10:17:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 26,995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/938785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/steeleye/pseuds/steeleye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>‘Be the best you can be’, read the slogan, 'join the professionals'. Not knowing what she could be, but being fairly sure she could be better than she was, Zoe Smith walked right on in to the recruiting office and enlisted in the army.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One.

The Recruit.

By Steeleye.

**Disclaimer:** I do not claim to own anything that you might recognise as being written by someone else, I write these stories for fun not profit.

 **Crossover:** A few ideas and a lot of names were taken from 'Private Benjamin', 'Aliens' and 'Saving Private Ryan'.

**Spelling, Punctuation, and Grammar:** Written in glorious English-English which is different to American-English.

**Timeline:** The second story in the Zoe Smith series of stories.

**Words:** Four chapters of 5000+ words.

**Warnings:** Nothing more than you'd expect to see on a TV cop show.

**Summary:** ‘Be the best you can be’, read the slogan, 'join the professionals'. Not knowing what she could be, but being fairly sure she could be better than she was, Zoe Smith walked right on in to the recruiting office and enlisted in the army.

0=0=0=0

_Left my home and left my job,  
Went and joined the army.  
If I knew then what I know now,  
I wouldn't have been so barmy.* ___

*: ‘Rogue's March’, traditional.

**A Bus Station in Oldport.**

Sitting by herself on a bench in the bus station, Zoe checked the time on the big clock above the door of the Burger Palace outlet for the hundredth time. There was still another half hour before her bus was due to arrive. Waiting there with all her worldly possessions in one small back pack, she wondered once again if she’d made the right decision.

Being sick of all the weird people in Oldport, sick of being a stripper and sick of being alone, Zoe had walked into the army recruitment office and told the recruiting sergeant she wanted to enlist. He’d eyed her suspiciously for maybe thirty seconds before smiling and telling her to sit down. For the first time in a very long time, Zoe felt wanted, the army it seemed was happy to see her and (for the time being at least) didn’t expect her to take her clothes off to music. On that first visit, the recruiting sergeant had talked in general terms about what the army had to offer a young woman like Zoe and what it expected from her in exchange. Zoe had listened carefully, whatever the disadvantages of a military life might be, she decided it was a lot better than the life she was living now.

At the time she was living in a one room apartment; she worked five nights a week as a stripper and dancer at the Hellfire Club, a sort of ‘monster’ themed strip joint. She earnt good money and if she kept at it, one day very soon, she’d be able to get the money together for the deposit on a bigger, better apartment. The thing was, she didn’t like stripping, it wasn’t really a career and it sort of left her feeling empty inside.

Zoe’d just missed out on a job as a waitress/hostess at a better club with a weird sounding name; the owner had been called ‘Leon’ and was another Oldport freak. He liked to dress up like some sort of demon with green skin; he was just as out of it as some of the girls who worked at the Hellfire Club. The thing was the job at this ‘Salve’ place would have been a step up for Zoe; for a start no one would be expecting her to take off her clothes several times a night. But as soon as she’d seen this ‘Leon’ guy in his weird monster make-up she’d stormed out in a mixture of disappointment and frustration. 

Not stopping until she was standing outside an army recruitment office, Zoe had calmed down and looked at the posters in the window. ‘Be the best you can be’, said the slogan, 'join the professionals'. Not knowing what she could be, but being fairly sure she could be better than she was, Zoe had walked right on in. After her first interview, Staff Sergeant Ross had given her a load of pamphlets to read and told her to come back in three or four days if she was still interested. Leaving the office, Zoe had gone back to her apartment and read all the stuff the sergeant had given her. She’d not been working that night; a couple of days previously she’d been caught up in a fight with some gangsters. They’d tried to kill the little girl who lived with her mum at the apartment block; there’d been a lot of shooting and Zoe’d had to jump off the roof to save the girl. Being a stripper meant it was hard to hide bruises so she’d not gone into work.

However, by the next day most of her cuts and bruises had healed or at least started to fade enough so she could cover them with make-up. Feeling and once again looking her usual hot self, Zoe had gone into work that night and picked up about five hundred Crowns in tips. There’d been a salesman’s convention in town and they were loud, drunk and generous. But, her good mood was soon spoilt when someone tried to rob her on her way home. There was major Crystal problem in this part of town and crime was sky high. After fighting off the mugger, she’d gone back to the room only to find herself with a new crop of bruises. 

At a new low in her life, Zoe felt like she’d been kicked in the teeth once too often (literally as well as figuratively). Having had what passed for a good night, the universe had tried to kill her. Being so beaten up so she’d not be able to work for the next few nights meant that the extra money she’d earnt would now have to be used to just pay the bills. To hell with waiting another couple of days, in the morning she was going right back down to the recruiting office and demanding that Sergeant Ross sign her up right now!

0=0=0=0

The next day when Zoe presented herself to Sergeant Ross, he’d looked horrified at all the bruises on her face and her skinned knuckles. Explaining how someone had tried to rob her and how she’d fought the creep off, Zoe had mentioned how joining the army looked like the safer option compared to living in Oldport. Laughing, Ross had agreed with her before starting to ask her some really searching questions about her past life.

After a couple of more days, in which the army checked out her life story, Zoe was called back and told that everything had checked out fine. Ross had then given her some tests, just to see how well she could read and write; Zoe sailed through these after some initial anxiety that her actual ability wouldn’t match up with what her school records claimed. Next she was given a medical; here she’d had to take her clothes off. But this time all anyone wanted to do was put the ends of cold stethoscopes on her skin to check that she was breathing before making sure she had the correct number of arms, legs, fingers, and toes. After peeing in a cup and giving a blood sample she was told to get dressed and go home, the army would contact her in a couple more days. 

Sure enough a day later, Sam the apartment clerk, put through a call to her room, it was the army. With sweaty hands and pounding heart, Zoe waited to hear the verdict; 'would she like to come ‘round tomorrow when she’d be sworn in and she could start her military career?' said the voice on the phone. Putting down the phone Zoe whooped for joy, she was on her way out of this crazy town. Once she’d stopped congratulating herself and calmed down she wanted to go out and celebrate…but as she had no one to celebrate with she did one last shift at the Hellfire Club before telling Nick, the owner, that she wouldn’t be back and cleaning out her locker.

Strangely, Nick was about the only person who seemed sorry to see her go. After all Zoe was one of his most popular dancers and he’d be losing money, until, that is, the next hot girl came along and everyone forgot about Zoe Smith. Zoe didn’t fool herself; soon she’d be nothing but a faded memory and a faded photo on the wall.

0=0=0=0

“I, Zoe Smith, do solemnly promise and affirm that I will support and defend the Constitution of the World Alliance against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the lawful orders of the President and of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice.”

There, Zoe smiled to herself as she held up her right hand, she was in the army now; she’d taken the oath with about half a dozen other recruits and was wondering what happened next. As it turned out what happened next was that she was paid a day’s basic army pay, given a ticket for a bus to Fruhlingfeld in Uberwald. She now had forty-eight hours to wrap up her civilian affairs (Zoe felt sure she could do that in about forty-eight minutes). The recruits were also reminded that they were now in the army and they were all under military discipline. Failure to report at the appropriate time and place would result in them being posted as ‘Absent With Out Leave’ which, they were told, was only one step down from ‘Desertion’. Not that the army needed worry about Zoe, no sir, she’d be at the bus station on Monday morning come hell or high water! Zoe was, possibly, the army’s happiest recruit at that moment; if they’d wanted her to walk bare foot over broken glass to get on that bus she would have done it gladly.

0=0=0=0

Now it was Monday morning and she was waiting for her ride to turn up. Her back pack sat by her feet containing all her documentation, three changes of underwear, her sexiest halter top, a spare pair of jeans and her toothbrush, soap and towel. Everything else she’d owned (which hadn’t been a lot) had gone to a local charity shop. She’d had her hair cut short suspecting that short hair would be a plus during her training and what the hell, hair grew back. Having settled her bill with Sam at the apartments, she'd kissed the clerk goodbye before walking out onto the street. Not even tempted to look back over her shoulder, Zoe had walked to the nearest bus stop and taken the next bus down to the main bus station where she’d arrived an hour early.

The sound of the bus’s engine and the hiss of its brakes as it drew up snapped Zoe out of the doze she’d fallen into.

“Fruhlingfeld, Uberwald!” called the driver as he swung the doors open.

Picking up her backpack and clutching her ticket in her hand, Zoe made her way towards the bus. Climbing aboard she walked along the vehicle; it was already crowded and Zoe resigned herself to having to sit next to someone she didn’t know for the journey. As luck would have it she saw a nervous looking young woman sitting by herself and staring out the window.

“Hey,” Zoe attracted the young woman’s attention; she looked up at Zoe as if she thought Zoe was about to attack her, Zoe smiled reassuringly, “this seat taken?”

“N-no,” the young woman relaxed a little and removed the magazines from the vacant seat.

After putting her backpack in the overhead rack, Zoe sat down; as she did so she noticed the ticket stub held tightly in the girl’s hand.

“Me too,” Zoe commented.

“What?” the young woman gave Zoe a puzzled frown.

“Fruhlingfeld,” Zoe gestured to the girl’s ticket, “ya joining the Army?”

“Oh, yeah,” she smiled, “I’m on my way to Festung Ritter”

“Me too,” Zoe repeated as she shifted in her seat trying to get herself comfortable; she turned slightly and offered her hand to the young, blonde woman, “Zoe Smith.”

“Mary Sage,” Mary took Zoe’s hand and shook it, “pleased to meet you Zoe.”

“Right back at ya,” Zoe grinned, “so, why’d ya join the army, Mary?”

“Oh,” Mary sighed sadly, “I had a row with my parents; they wanted me to marry Earnest Brackenridge.”

“Who?” Zoe had never heard of the guy but she was against marrying anyone called ‘Earnest’ on principle.

“Earnest Brackenridge, he’s a doctor, you know?” Mary explained.

Okay, thought Zoe, a doctor, which might not be so bad.

“Not that sort of doctor,” Mary pointed out as if reading Zoe’s mind, “he’s some sort of scientist doctor, but he’s way older than me.”

“Okay,” Zoe agreed, as she rethought her wedding plans, “how much older?”

“Oh not ‘icky’ older but still too old for me,” Mary replied without hesitation.

“So why did ya folks want ya to marry this old guy?” Zoe wanted to know, “Ya can’t be much older than me.”

“I’m twenty,” Mary admitted, and sighed sadly, “My parents had some agreement with Earnest that he could marry me the day I turned twenty-one,” Mary shrugged, “my mother was always telling me that everybody had to make sacrifices.”

“Sheesh,” Zoe shook her head, maybe not having parents (at least none that were alive) was the better option after all if they expected you to marry weird middle-aged guys, “I can see how ya’d wanna get away.”

“So what about you Zoe,” Mary obviously didn’t want to talk about herself any more, “why’d you join the army?”

“Sick of being a stripper,” Zoe replied with a shrug.

Mary looked at Zoe as if she had some dreadful communicable disease.

“Hey,” Zoe cried as she gave Mary a hurt look, “it’s not something I’m proud of and I only did it for a couple of years.”

“I’m sorry,” Mary squeaked, obviously strippers were something way out of her field of experience, “but, you took your clothes off in front of…men?”

“And women,” Zoe chuckled at the look on Mary's face, “like a lot of things it wouldn’t be the same if ya did by myself.”

“No, I don’t suppose it would,” Mary agreed after a moments thought, however she seemed fascinated by the whole idea of being an ‘exotic dancer’. “So you just took your clothes off to music, right? Nothing else…”

“That’s about it,” Zoe explained, “no lap dances and no ‘private shows’.”

“Private shows?” Mary grasped for more information.

“Y’know taking the customers out back and getting down ‘n’ dirty with ‘em,” Zoe explained.

“Oh yes, I think I see,” Mary interrupted, “you must think I’ve led a very sheltered life.”

“Gotta say kid,” Zoe shrugged, “ya sound like ya lived onna mountain or somethin'.”

“My parents sent me to a private girls school back east,” Mary explained, “we weren’t allowed to go out by ourselves much.”

“An’ ya didn’t break out?” Zoe asked.

“No,” Mary shook her head, “do you think I should have?”

“Look, Mary,” Zoe felt sorry for the girl as she was likely in for some pretty unpleasant surprises, “ya might wanna rethink the whole army thing. But until then stick close to me kid an’ ya won’t go far wrong.”

0=0=0=0

**Festung Ritter, Fruhlingfeld, Uberwald.**

“Hey, wake-up,” Zoe shook Mary’s shoulder as the bus pulled up just inside Festung Ritter, “we’re here.”

Festung Ritter was situated almost ten miles from the town of Fruhlingfeld, a place that hardly merited the name ‘town’. The bus had deposited the recruits, all young women, on Fruhlingfeld’s main street; here they’d been collected by a male army corporal who’d loaded them into the back of an army truck with about another twenty female recruits. As Zoe and Mary had been the last ones to arrive, they were quickly herded aboard and driven out of town towards Festung Ritter. It was pitch dark as they drove towards the camp, but even so, Zoe managed to pick out some mountains in the distance and an awful lot of trees.

“But it’s the middle of the night!” Mary opened one bleary eye after the other and looked around.

“No it’s not,” Zoe stood up and reached for her backpack, she glanced at her watch, “its four in the morning.”

“Noooo!” Mary wailed as she closed her eyes and tried to go back to sleep, “This is a nightmare!”

“All the more reason to wake up,” this time Zoe didn’t shake her new friend; she grabbed hold of Mary’s jacket and hauled her to her feet.

“Hey!” Mary cried as she found herself lifted off her feet for a second.

“Come-on, lets move,” swinging her small backpack onto her back, Zoe followed the other new recruits as they jumped down from the back of the truck and out into the fresh mountain air.

Once off the truck, Zoe found herself really waking up, the air was cool and so much fresher than Oldports’s smog laden atmosphere; she felt more awake than she had done in a very long time. Although Zoe liked to sleep, she’d found she could get by on two or three hours a night; as long as she got a chance for one long sleep a week she’d be fresh as a daisy; she was obviously just one of those people who didn’t need to sleep that much. Whatever the reason it looked like her ability to stay awake and alert for long periods was going to come in useful in her new career. Turning around Zoe watched as Mary stumbled down from the truck and onto the road, she paused to look around like a little, lost, child; the expression on her face made Zoe smile. 

Unlike, Zoe, Mary had brought an enormous suitcase, full of expensive clothes; for someone who’d basically run away from home she didn’t believe in travelling light. Mary’s luggage, along with everybody else’s was piled up next to the bus, even Zoe’s pack, which hardly counted as luggage joined the rest. A female NCO yelled at them to get lined up, which they did after Zoe had dragged Mary away from her suitcase and over to where the other recruits stood. As soon as everyone was in a rough line the first NCO stood to one side and gave the floor to a large, muscular guy dressed in camouflaged combats and a beret. 

“I’m Staff Sergeant Ballard,” not only was he tall and muscular, he also had very short, blond hair and strikingly blue eyes; Zoe immediately fell in lust with him, “I will be your Senior Intake Instructor…” and as quickly fell out again as the words were spoken.

“Is he a park ranger or something?” Mary asked sleepily but loud enough for Ballard to hear.

“Who said that!?” it might have been a question but Ballard seemed to know exactly who’d said ‘that’. “You!” Ballard pointed a well scrubbed finger at Mary, “You do not speak when I’m talking, do you understand?”

“W-what?” Mary replied uncertainly.

“To show me you understand drop and give me twenty,” Ballard ordered.

“Twenty?” Mary looked from Ballard to Zoe hoping for some sort of explanation.

Rolling her eyes, Zoe wisely decided to say nothing and watch the trees that surrounded the camp as they slowly became visible in the early morning light. Very soon Mary found out what Ballard meant, getting down on her hands and knees she slowly started on her twenty push-ups. For just a moment, Zoe regretted her choice of friend and seriously considered dumping the girl. After all they had little in common, Mary was a society girl, she’d been to a private school out east, Zoe had been a stripper with no real past. It also starting to look as if Mary was going to spend a lot of time doing push-ups for one reason or another and any trouble that missed Mary was bound to hit her.

But, there was something about the girl that Zoe liked, plus it wasn’t her way to dump a friend or let them down. Signing a little, Zoe decided to stick with Mary, unless she turned out to be one of those brats she’d seen on the TV shows, perhaps the girl would shape up given time. By the time Mary had laboriously pushed out five push-ups, Ballard had grown bored and had started to get everyone organised alphabetically. 

The next thing on the list of exciting activities for their first day in the army was a hair cut. The girls who'd not had their hair cut before arriving at Festung Ritter (which was most of them) had their hair trimmed down to about two inches. Instead of having her hair cut, Zoe got to start on her documentation. The army seemed to want to know everything about her in triplicate and didn’t care how many trees died in the process. Staring at the pile of forms and the ballpoint pen lying next to them, Zoe’s heart sank, how the hell was she going to fill in all these forms? Slowly, like a prisoner going to her execution, Zoe pulled the first form towards her and looked at the first question, ‘name’ it said. Okay, that wasn’t too hard, she could answer that one.

0=0=0=0

About an hour later Zoe had finished filling in the last form, she seriously hoped that no one would ever actually read what she’d written. Most of her personal details, had been made up on the spot because she simply didn’t know the truth. After form filling and shaking some life back into her hand, it was time for breakfast. The food was simple, but it was well prepared and there was plenty of it; Zoe piled her plate high and went to sit by a window where she could take in her surrounding.

Festung Ritter was made up of several rows of long, low wooden buildings, these, she was soon to discover, were the barrack huts for the recruits and instructors. There were a number of brick built blocks, like the one that housed the kitchens and dinning areas, which she later discovered also contained, admin offices, storerooms and classrooms. The huts and blocks were separated by narrow roads and small strips of grass. Everything had the look of something held over from the Unification War and had an air of slight dilapidation that said the place was about to be closed down sometime soon.

The camp was surrounded by a tall chain-link fence with barbed wire on top. Outside the wire there were rank upon rank of tall, dark, brooding trees. Zoe shivered as she watched the trees and let her eyes roam on up to the mountains in the distance. Having little to gauge distance against, Zoe couldn’t guess how far away the mountains were, but she made a bet with herself that at some point during her stay she was going to find out whether she wanted to or not.

“Hi!” Mary sat down across the table from Zoe, she looked at Zoe’s breakfast in a mixture of disgust and horror, “You’re not going to eat all of that are you?”

Mary’s breakfast consisted of a couple of pieces of dry toast and an apple; ‘darn’, thought Zoe, she hadn’t noticed the fruit.

“Yeah,” Zoe paused in her attempt to hover up as much food as she could in the shortest time possible, “ya know when lunch times gonna be?” Mary shook her head, “Neither do I,” Zoe admitted, “but I’m guessing it’s gonna be a long, long time coming.”

“But the grease, Zoe,” Mary pointed at Zoe’s plate, “think what it’ll do to your complexion…”

“I don’t think that’s gonna be an issue for a while,” Zoe pointed out as she wiped her plate clean with a piece of bread, and anyway she’d never had a zit in her entire life.

“Well, I’ve always been taught to try to look my best,” Mary explained as she delicately bit into her toast, “although what they’ve done to my hair’s going to make that like totally impossible!”

Mary ran her fingers though her short hair, and just for a minute Zoe felt sorry for the girl. It did look as if it had been cut by a drunken monkey with a pair of blunt scissors.

“Okay,” Zoe shrugged, “have it your own way but don’t come crying to me if you’re hungry by midday.”

“And don’t you come crying to me when your skin breaks out,” Mary countered before looking pensively over to where breakfast was still being served, “You really think its going to be a long time ‘til lunchtime?”

“Hey look it’s only six-thirty,” Zoe nodded at the clock on the wall, “what d’ya think?”

Sitting in indecision for a moment, Mary was just about to get up and get herself a larger breakfast when Staff Sergeant Ballard called for them to form up outside.

0=0=0=0

As it turned out Zoe was right, it was a long time until lunch time, but to Zoe (who’d had a good breakfast) it just flew by. First they’d been issued with their uniforms and all their personal kit. It was then that Zoe learnt the first in a long line of useful things about army life. In the army there were only two sizes; too big and too small and it was better to be issued things that were too big than too small. Mary of course had been disgusted that everyone expected her to wear so much green; she’d complained bitterly that it didn’t go with her eyes. Next they were issued their bedding; stiff, cotton sheets and rough, hairy blankets. Lastly, loaded down with uniforms and bedding, they were led to the wooden barrack hut that would be their home for the next ten weeks of their Basic Military Training.

The hut was divided into two large rooms, each capable of housing thirty or so recruits. As there were about fifty female recruits the barracks wasn’t so crowded. Between these two dormitory rooms were wash-rooms plus what looked like a couple of offices. The barrack room was supplied with metal framed beds and grey metal lockers in two lines along either wall, Zoe decided that it could have been worse. As no one seemed to care where anyone bunked down, she headed for the far end of the room and got the last bed in the row. Mary staggered up behind her almost invisible behind her huge pile of bedding and equipment.

“Why’ve we come all the way down here?” Mary wanted to know, “We’re miles from the wash-rooms.”

“The way I see it,” Zoe sat down on the springs of her bed for a moment, “down that end,” she pointed towards the wash-rooms, “ya gonna be woken up every time someone goes by to take a leak in the middle of the night, up here it might be further to walk but at least we’ll get some sleep.”

“My God,” Mary looked at Zoe and then back towards the wash-room, “I’d never have thought of that…you’re so clever Zoe,” Mary sighed heavily, “and you were right about breakfast, I’m starving.”

“Sorry I can’t do anything about that,” Zoe commiserated.

“I know,” Mary admitted, “but from now on I’m going to do exactly what you tell me to!”

“Ya gonna what?” Zoe looked at Mary and shook her head.

“Well,” Mary got up off her bed and started to toss her new uniform into her locker, “you seem to know what to do Zoe, but me…?” Mary shrugged, “Well, look, anything I can do to help and I mean ‘anything’ you just ask okay?”

“Yeah, sure,” Zoe replied as she too started to put things in her locker; was Mary coming on to her? 

That was fine by her, Mary was cute and Zoe liked doing it with girls as well as boys. However Zoe suspected there wasn’t going to be much time or energy left over from their training to find out what Mary really meant. Deciding to take her friend’s words at face value, Zoe chose not to push the issue; perhaps Mary was just being friendly. Whatever Mary meant, Zoe didn’t have time to think about it for long, after getting her gear roughly squared away into her locker she had to go and help collect everyone’s luggage and bring it back to the barrack room. Everyone was allowed to remove a few personal items before everything else was taken away again and put into storage.

Lunchtime came around just before Mary fainted from lack of food. They had an hour for lunch and then it was back to the barrack hut. During the afternoon a female corporal, called Bell, gave them lessons in how to make a bed. Zoe hadn’t even known the basics and didn’t know how the army expected her to make a bed; as it turned out she quickly got the hang of it. Next there was a locker layout to master, followed by how they were supposed to dress in their uniforms. Although Mary had promised to do whatever Zoe told her, it didn’t stop her from making inappropriate comments. By the time the afternoon was over, Mary’s ability to do push-ups had improved dramatically.

Finally, before they were dismissed to go to dinner, they were lined up to meet their intake commander, Lieutenant Doreen Lewis; a woman with coffee coloured skin, dark brown eyes and incredibly short hair. Walking up and down the lines of recruits as they stood at the foot of their beds, she inspected them closely but didn’t look too happy about what she saw. Then, for some reason, she stopped right in front of Zoe, looking down at her, Lewis was several inches taller than Zoe, the officer inspected her recruit closely.

“So, soldier,” Lewis looked deeply into Zoe’s eyes from behind the dark glasses she wore, “what did you do before you joined the army?”

“I…” Zoe gulped and hesitated for a moment before completing her answer, “…I was a dancer, ma’am.”

“A dancer?” Lewis frowned as she looked Zoe up and down, after deciding that Zoe hadn’t been a classical dancer, she asked, “What sort of dancer?”

“In a club, ma’am,” Zoe added slowly.

“In a club?” again Lewis frowned and glanced at Ballard before turning back to Zoe, “What sort of…oh!”

“Yes ma’am,” Zoe agreed when she saw Lewis had worked out for herself what sort of dancer Zoe had been.

“Did…did,” Lewis swallowed hard as she got ready to ask another question, “did you do anything else at this ‘club’?”

“No ma’am!” Zoe replied quickly, “Just dancing.”

“Good,” Lewis nodded, “glad to see you here…” Lewis looked at Zoe’s name tag, “…Smith, want to make something of yourself, eh?”

“Yes ma’am,” Zoe decided it would be best to agree with the officer.

“Good to know!” Lewis slapped Zoe on the shoulder in a comradely way, “I can see with an attitude like that you’re going to go far in this woman’s army.”

“I am?” Zoe asked quietly before adding, “Ma’am?”

“Yes,” Lt Lewis agreed with a curt nod, “and I’ll be here to help you on your way.”

0=0=0=0

Darkness slowly fell as the recruits settled in for their first night in the army. Quietly they talked amongst themselves as they squared away their kit and got ready for an early night. As the recruits talked and wondered and questioned whether they’d made the right decision in joining-up, something watched the camp from the darkness of the trees. Something very old and extremely hungry.

0=0=0=0


	2. Chapter 2

2.

_Gave me a gun and a big red coat,_  
Gave me lots of drilling.  
If I'd known then what I know now,  
I wouldn't have took the shilling.* 

*: Rogue's March, Traditional.

**Festung Ritter, Uberwald.**

The first proper day of Zoe’s military career started at five o’clock in the morning, or if you wanted that in ‘army speak’; zero-five-hundred. After a rapid visit to the wash-room, Zoe got dressed ready for PT before making her bed.

“Move it, Mary,” she called when she saw her friend still struggling with the concept that such a thing as five o’clock in the morning actually existed.

“But it’s still the middle of the night!” this complaint appeared to be one of Mary’s favourites, “And where’s my breakfast?”

“No maid service here,” Zoe announced as she pulled back Mary’s bedding and hauled her out of bed, “an’ breakfast's not ‘til six-thirty.”

“So why are we getting up now?” Mary asked miserably as she searched for her soap, toothbrush and towel.

“Oh that’s easy,” Zoe smiled wickedly, “we’ve got PT to do first!”

“Oh god!” Mary wailed as she shuffled off to the wash-room, “I’m in hell!”

0=0=0=0

**PT.**

That first PT period was taken up with a fitness test to see how fit the recruits actually were. It involved doing a set number of ‘repetitions’ of six different exercises, the test was scientifically designed to assess each recruit’s strength and stamina in different muscle groups. As the Army was in love with doing everything in alphabetical order and as ‘S’ was way down the line, Zoe got to watch how the other recruits performed before it was her turn.

At first Zoe thought, ‘this is way easy’; she could do the test in her sleep. Then little warning bells started to ring in the back of her mind. Okay, Zoe thought, she’d always known that she was stronger than most women, but up until that moment she’d not realised just how strong she was compared to other people. From what she could see of how everyone was doing Zoe thought she must be stronger even than some guys.

Instead of feeling happy about this, Zoe started to worry; she’d seen enough movies and read enough comic books to know what happened to the super-strong-girl once the government found out about her. Zoe had no wish to spend the rest of her life being experimented on by guys in white coats carrying clipboards. It was time to use her brains, watching carefully she counted the number of repetitions each of the women ahead of her managed to do. Nodding to herself as she stepped forward to take her turn, Zoe decided that she could safely do one or two more than the best recruit so far, maybe do one or two under in some of the exercises so as not to stand out too much.

0=0=0=0

**The Obstacle Course, a week later.**

This looked like fun, Zoe told herself as she readied herself for her first time over the assault course. She was now about a week into her training and so far, apart from the Army’s mania for keeping everything spotlessly clean, she was loving every minute of it, even the instructors didn’t seem anywhere near as bad as she’d imagined they were going to be. Of course Zoe’s opinion of army life was coloured by the fact that she found all the physical stuff easy and the classroom training wasn't as hard as she’d imagined it was going to be. It seemed to her that she only had to be shown something once and she could remember it.

Another good thing about army life, was she had more friends now than she’d ever made in Oldport. There was, Nina a Latino girl from one of the little republics way down south, Brandi from somewhere up in the Spine Mountains and of course there was Mary. Life, however, wasn’t so good if your name was Mary Sage, Zoe had tried to help her friend out as much as she could; but Mary seemed to be starting from a point so far down on the ladder that she had to work twice as hard just to catch up and be average. 

As Zoe ran towards the six foot wall, which was the first obstacle on the assault course, she saw Mary still trying to climb over it. As Mary had started out near the front of the platoon, she must have been there since nearly the beginning of the exercise. Trotting up to the wall, Zoe jumped and came to rest lying with her body halfway over the wall, the way she'd been feeling she’d felt like she could have jumped right over the wall. Swinging one leg over the wall so she was sitting astride it, she looked down and saw Mary’s tears of frustration as she kept trying to get up and over the wall. Reaching down, Zoe took hold of Mary’s collar and heaved her up onto the wall beside her.

“Come-on Mary,” Zoe told her friend, “if ya don’t want to go back home with your tail between ya legs an’ marry that asshole Earnest, ya better shape up fast, now follow-me!”

Jumping off the wall, Zoe paused for a moment to watch Mary jump down beside her, then placing her hand between Mary’s shoulders, Zoe exerted gentle pressure on the girl’s back so she wouldn’t slow down. With a mixture of verbal encouragement, and a few judicious pushes, Zoe got her friend over the obstacle course, but Mary still fell into the water filled ditch at the end of the course as she tried to swing across it.

0=0=0=0

“Did you see what our little stripper just did?” Lt Lewis asked as she watched the recruits go over the course.

“Yes Ma’am, I did” Staff Sergeant Ballard replied as he made a check mark on the clipboard he was carrying, “Smith just hauled Sage’s arse across that assault course.”

“I thought that’s what I saw,” Lt Lewis smiled as she glanced at Ballard, “what’s she like, Smith I mean? No problems, she’s not been putting on little shows for the male staff has she?”

“No Ma’am,” Ballard shook his head, “Smith keeps to her own little group of friends, doesn’t mix much otherwise,” Ballard took a breath before continuing, “She’s strong, tough, quick to learn, never makes the same mistake twice,” Ballard observed, “takes everything the instructors can throw at her then comes back for more, she’s a model recruit.”

“And Sage?” Lewis asked in a lower voice already guessing what the answer would be.

“About as different from Smith as you can get,” Ballard replied his voice dropping, “In fact I’d say she was holding Smith back on some of the physical things, Sage does well in the classroom though.”

“Holds her back?” Lewis queried.

“Yeah,” Ballard nodded, “Smith keeps going back to help Sage, its slowing her down.”

“I call it leadership, Jim,” Lewis added Ballard’s first name quietly so no one could overhear, “I recognised it in her from the first time I saw her, Smith has all the qualities to make an excellent soldier.” Lt Lewis paused and smiled in Zoe’s direction, “Keep them together Staff Sergeant, it won’t harm Smith and it might help Sage.”

“Yes ma’am,” Ballard saluted and watched as his officer walked away.

0=0=0=0

**The Forest Surrounding Festung Ritter.**

Raising his clenched fist, Lt Gorman sank slowly to his knees while behind him the rest of the men in his squad followed suit. As the patrol watched either side of the narrow game trail they were on for trouble, Gorman waved his sergeant forward. Moving swiftly and quietly along the line of the patrol, Sergeant Apone came to a halt by his Lieutenant and sank down into cover next to the officer.

“What’s up L-t?” Apone asked as he watched Gorman rest his rifle across his knee and pull his map from inside his jacket.

“What’s up, Sergeant Apone,” Gorman grinned, “is that there are too many bloody trees in this part of the world and I can’t see where we’re going,” Gorman sighed tiredly, “I think we took a wrong turn aways back,” he showed Apone his map and compass, “What do you think?”

After studying the map for about thirty seconds, Apone nodded his head.

“I think you’re right, L-t,” the older man shrugged under his equipment harness, “we’re lost.”

“Damn-it!” Gorman snapped angry at himself for getting them lost, “I wish we had one of those new fancy GPS things, no way would we'd get lost then.”

“Like that’s gonna happen, L-t,” Apone chuckled deep in his throat, “like the Army’s gonna buy something like that?”

“Yeah,” Gorman sighed, “I expect you’re right…so, what do you suggest, try and retrace our steps?”

“Hold on, L-t, lets not be wanderin’ back and forward ‘round these here woods if’n we don’t have to,” Apone studied Gorman’s map for a full two minutes. “Look,” he pointed to the map, “there’s a river runs east-west down this valley. Now I know we’re on the south side of it down here.” Apone’s finger indicated their likely position on the map, “All we have to do is keep walking north ‘til we…”

“Movement!” came the whispered call from further down the patrol; instantly Gorman and Apone stopped talking and looked back at their troopers.

Near the rear of the patrol, Private Vasquez clutched his SAW tightly with his right hand while pointing into the forest with his left.

“What’d you see, Vasquez?” Gorman whispered as he and Apone made their way over to where Vasquez crouched as quietly as they could.

“Don’t know for sure, L-t,” Vasquez replied as the rest of the patrol got themselves ready for a possible fight, “but it went behind that clump of bushes over there.”

“A dear?” Apone asked hopefully.

“Too tall,” Vasquez shook his head, “an’ deer don’t walk on two legs…”

“Okay,” Gorman eyed the bushes; they’d been chasing this ‘thing’ for two days now ever since it had ripped apart and eaten a party of Scouts.

The press had been given the story that it was a rabid bear, but very soon there were stories that a ‘Bigfoot’ had done it. Of course this had started an argument amongst the sort of people that believed in things like Sasquatch. Some said that Bigfoots (or should that be ‘Bigfeet’?) were peaceful omnivores, others claimed that they were ravening monsters. Gorman agreed that what they were following was a ravening monster but this was no Bigfoot like in that old movies. This was something much worse than that and Gorman’s job was to kill it.

“Okay,” Gorman called softly, “lets go check it out, Lance Corporal Ferro…”

“L-t?” Ferro called back softly.

“Take Frost and Wierbowski,” Gorman ordered, “you’re right flank.”

“On it!” Ferro called back.

“Sergeant,” Gorman nodded to his second in command, “take Drake and his M24 plus Hudson, over there,” Gorman pointed to the left, “and set up a base of fire, I’ll call it in when I want you to take out that bush.” Gorman laughed quietly, the bush in question was going to have a really bad day in a minute or two, “everyone else spread out in a skirmish line and advance on my signal, now move!”

While the patrol got itself organised, Gorman scanned the trees for movement, whatever was behind that bush was keeping really still and quiet. It wasn’t that the trees were too close together, or that there was a lot of undergrowth. It was the fact that the trees were too tall for him or anyone else to get a good look at the surrounding terrain so they could keep their bearing. Down at ground level all you could see were tree trunks going off into the distance (which was maybe a hundred yards away) and a few clumps of bushes like the one they were about to attack.

Hearing Apone whistle quietly, Gorman looked up and around, everyone looked as if they were in position. Pointing to Apone, Gorman gave the signal for Drake to open fire. Instantly the silence of the woods was shattered by the stutter of Drake’s M24 as it started to demolish the clump of bushes. After letting Drake fire about a hundred rounds into the foliage, Gorman waved his team forward.

Moving in a long uneven line, Gorman’s team rapidly closed the distance to the bushes. Not that Gorman expected to find anything, Vasquez had probably seen a deer or a shadow, but the break in routine made by the little impromptu assault was good for morale and helped keep everyone alert. Being slightly ahead of his team, Gorman reached the bushes first, slowing to a cautious walk, he worked his way around the clump of undergrowth, his AR7A2 assault rifle at his shoulder. Stepping around the machine-gun damaged bush, Gorman sighed and relaxed, he’d been right there wasn’t anything there.

“Okay people,” Gorman called, “We’ve been chasing shadows,” Gorman looked at a rather disappointed Vasquez, “sorry Vasquez no monsters today, but you were right to call it.”

Slowly the patrol came together in a little huddle behind the bush.

“Okay, guys,” Gorman glanced at his watch, “we might as well…AAAAGH!”

Gorman had been wrong, there was something behind the bush; only it’d been hiding in a shallow depression a couple of yards further into the forest from where the bushes grew. It rose up, towering over the soldier and swung one great bony, claw tipped hand at Gorman and almost cut him in half.

Standing in shocked horror at the sudden appearance of the monster, no one moved or did anything for maybe two precious seconds. Apone was the first to start firing, but the monster moved too quickly for him to get a good shot. The rest of the patrol were crowded together and getting in his way. The monster moved rapidly from soldier to soldier slicing them into screaming, bloody chunks. It should have been impossible for something that big to move so fast, but it did and the little clearing behind the bush was soon drenched in blood and covered in pieces of Lt Gorman’s patrol.

Frantically trying to fit a full magazine into his rifle Corporal Dietrich sobbed and fumbled as he dropped the magazine before giving up and throwing away his rifle. Shouting hysterically he turned and started to run. Dietrich, was the unit’s medic and he’d just seen every friend he had in the world killed…slaughtered by that thing. Running through the forest heedless of where he was going, Dietrich just wanted to get as far away from that thing as he could. So, he ran deeper into the trees and with every step he got more and more lost.

0=0=0=0

Back at the bush the thing ate ravenously, but its hunger was never sated; it was cursed to always be hungry to always need to kill and never feel satisfied. Ever since the 'smooth-skins' had come to his world the creature's people had hunted them. But there was something in the smooth-skin's bodies that prevented his kind from gaining the full benefit from their meal. The monster was therefore simultaneously constantly gorging itself and emaciated from starvation.

0=0=0=0

**Festung Ritter.**

Lifting her head up at the sound of distant gunfire, Lt Lewis turned to Corporal Bell.

“Is there someone out on a field problem, or live firing?” she asked knowing that the answer should be ‘no’.

“No ma’am,” Bell replied after she’d consulted her clipboard, “Lt Woodridge’s intake are out on a route march but they should be way over to the south.”

“Odd,” Lewis mused, she was fairly sure she’d heard automatic fire.

“Maybe its hunters, ma’am?” Bell suggested.

“With machine-guns?” Lewis glanced down a Bell, “What are they hunting, mammoths or something?”

“Could be that bear that killed those scouts a couple of days ago,” Bell suggested.

“Hmm,” Lewis wasn’t convinced, but she wasn’t sure of what she’d actually heard, “Oh, don’t worry, I’ll talk to the Colonel about it later.”

“Right you are ma’am,” Bell agreed, she’d not worry if the L-t told her not to.

0=0=0=0

“Come on Mary,” Zoe laughed, “you’ve been walking all ya life, what’s so hard about marching, it’s just like walking all together.”

“It’s alright for you,” Mary replied grumpily, “you can do anything…”

“Like walk?” Zoe sniggered as they walked back to their barracks after lunch, “Come on lets try it again,” Zoe fell into step beside her friend; she had to admit that yes she did find most of it easy, but come on, walking?

Concentrating hard, Mary tried to stay in step with Zoe, but after only a few paces she found herself out of step and with her right arm swinging in time with her right foot.

“Oh Zoe,” Mary almost sobbed, “I’m useless I can’t even march!”

“Y’know what your problem is, an’ it’s not coz ya useless,” Zoe brought her friend to a halt, “it’s coz your tryin’ way too hard.” Zoe took a deep breath, “Come-on lets try it again but this time don’t think about it, just do it!”

This time Mary managed to keep in step with Zoe all the way back to the barrack hut. About fifty yards away and standing in the shade of a tree, Staff Sergeant Ballard, watched Zoe’s little marching lesson with Mary.

“Now that,” Ballard pointed out to Corporal Bell who stood beside him, “is the sort of recruit that you dream about having…”

“You do, Staff Sergeant?” Bell gave a lewd sniggered.

“I don’t mean like that!” Ballard laughed, “Get your mind out of the gutter Corporal Bell and listen up. Smith is the sort of recruit that it’s a pleasure to teach, makes the job worthwhile.”

“You’re not wrong, Staff,” Bell agreed with a nod, “We’ll see how she does on the ranges and in combat training.”

“Care to make a bet on how well she does, Corporal?” Ballard asked.

“I don’t bet on certainties, Staff,” Bell replied with a grin.

0=0=0=0

**Rifle Ranges, Festung Ritter.**

“Slow down your rate of fire, Smith!” Staff Sergeant Ballard called as he walked up behind Zoe.

Lying on the ground at the firing point, Zoe fired rapidly into the man-sized target three-hundred yards down range, after firing her allotted five rounds at the target she unloaded her AR7 before jumping to her feet and standing with her weapon in the ‘port arms’ position.

“Firing like that, scatters your fire all over the target area,” Ballard explained, “You need to take deliberate aim with each round to ensure the highest number of rounds on target.”

“Yes Staff Sergeant,” Zoe replied crisply.

“Now let’s see what you’ve got…” Ballard lifted his binoculars to his eyes and looked down range.

At first he didn’t believe what he was seeing, he took his glasses from his eyes and looked from them to Zoe and then back at the target. Raising his binoculars to his eyes once more he looked down range at Zoe’s target and had to admit that he'd seen what he thought he’d seen. There in the middle of Zoe’s target was a tight group of five holes, lowering his binoculars, Ballard looked suspiciously at Zoe.

“You ever shoot before, Smith?” Ballard asked slowly.

“No, Staff Sergeant!” Zoe replied.

“Hmmm,” Ballard rubbed his chin, “Okay lets see you do it again, make sure it wasn’t beginners luck, put another five rounds into that target.”

“Yes Staff Sergeant!” Zoe quickly put another magazine of five rounds into her weapon before getting down into a firing position and cocking her rifle.

As she lay there looking at the target over the top of her rifle, a thought came to Zoe’s mind. Maybe, this was one of those times that she didn’t want to look too good. After all, she was a woman and it was unlikely that she’d ever go into combat. As long as she qualified what did it matter if she didn’t shoot as well as she knew she could? Taking careful aim, Zoe fired slowly into the target, this time she made sure that her rounds made a larger grouping and that her forth and fifth rounds went into the outer target area outside the central zone where all her other rounds had hit. After unloading she jumped to her feet again to watch Ballard’s reaction.

“First time musta been a fluke,” Ballard lowered his glasses sadly and eyed Zoe with suspicion, “pity…looks like there is something that Sage can do better than you!”

Following the Staff Sergeant’s gaze, Zoe turned to see where her friend was pumping round after round down range and blowing a large hole in the center of her target. With ever round, Mary let out a loud whoop of excitement.

“Carry on, Smith,” Ballard turned away from Zoe and walked over to where Lt Lewis stood watching.

“Staff Sergeant,” Lewis nodded to Ballard, “I saw you there with our star recruit, something wrong?”

“Not sure L-t,” Ballard frowned and shook his head.

“Spit it out Jim,” Lewis said quietly.

“Well,” Ballard took off his beret and fiddled with the headband, “I can’t prove it but I think she was holding back and deliberately missing the target.”

“Deliberately missing?” Lewis looked at her friend in confusion, “Why’d she want to do that?”

“Tell the truth, Doreen,” Ballard replied in hushed tones, “I’ve no idea, but when I told her to put another five rounds down range I could swear she deliberately moved her rifle off target.”

“But why Jim?” Lewis wanted to know, “It makes no sense.”

“So she doesn’t look _too_ good?” Ballard suggested, “And there’s another thing, have you noticed how she only does a little better than the other recruits?” Ballard shook his head in confusion, “She does just enough to get good scores but not enough to stand out as anything unusual and I know she can do better.”

“Well I…” Lewis started but didn’t get the chance to finish because Ballard just kept on talking.

“Have you ever seen her look really tired or more than a little out of breath?” Jim Ballard asked.

“Well, Jim,” Doreen Lewis checked that there was no one around close enough to hear them speak, “she was a ‘dancer’ and that’s good aerobic exercise, I’m betting she started out fitter than the other recruits.”

“I know,” Jim sighed as he put on his hat again, “but there’s something about that girl, the other instructors have noticed it too…”

“Oh, I know what this is,” Doreen smiled, “this is a case of Staff Sergeant Ballard looking a gift horse in the mouth…seeing the cloud and not the silver lining. You just can’t believe that a recruit can be that good.”

“Yeah I know, L-t,” now Jim had his beret back on it was Lt Lewis not Doreen he was talking to.

“Yeah…” Doreen nodded her head slowly as she thought over her Staff Sergeant’s words, “…I know I don’t really have to ask you, but keep an eye on her for me, Staff Sergeant and don’t hesitate to come to me if you have further concerns.”

“Yes Ma’am!” Ballard braced up to attention and saluted.

“Carry on Staff Sergeant,” Lt Lewis returned the salute before turning away and going back to her office.

0=0=0=0

**A Camp in the Forest.**

Standing in front of the little group of Rangers, Captain John H. Miller studied the men sitting under the trees for a moment. They looked tough and experienced, normally he’d have no problem sending them on any mission that Army Intelligence might need conducting, but this mission…well maybe this time even Rangers weren’t tough enough.

“Okay men, we’ve not got all day,” Miller announced gaining the attention of the special forces troopers, “About three weeks ago a troop of Scouts were camping in the area north of here when they were attacked and eaten…”

“Eaten?” queried a trooper.

“Yes eaten,” Miller nodded, “by a creature…”

“I thought the Park Rangers said it was a rabid bear or something,” this last was from Captain Fred Hamill who was in command of the Rangers. 

“Yeah, that’s the story the park authorities were told to put out,” Miller admitted.

“So it was something else?” Staff Sergeant William Hill asked, he was Hamill’s second in command for this mission.

“I’m afraid it was, Staff Sergeant,” Miller admitted before gesturing to his aide, “Lieutenant DeWindt if you please?” 

The tall young officer stepped forward and pulled the cover from the easel that had been placed where everyone could see it.

“This,” DeWindt pointed to a large colour photograph of a haggard and injured young man who stared out of the photograph with large frightened eyes, “is Corporal Dietrich, he was a medic with a team of twelve experienced Army Intelligence Special Ops troopers.” DeWindt paused to let the picture of the terrified young man sink in. “They found the creature that ate those Scouts…he was the only survivor, it took him a week to get back to civilisation.”

“So what killed ‘em?” asked an anonymous trooper in the crowd.

“We think this did,” DeWindt turned to the next page in his presentation; it showed a large shambling creature with long sharp claws growing from its bony hands, a gaunt face, big teeth and large inhuman eyes. “And we want you to hunt it down and kill it.”

“So this is just another bug hunt?” asked another trooper.

“You watch too many movies, Fredericks,” Staff Hill called back.

“So, let me get this straight…” Captain Hamill walked towards the picture and studied it closely for a moment, “…you want us to find and kill this nightmare?”

“That’s the job,” Captain Miller agreed, “we’ve had no further reports of it killing anything else but its still out there and all reports appear to indicate that it prefers human flesh so I don’t think you’ll need to find it, it’ll find you.”

“You sure your people weren’t high or something?” Hamill asked, “I mean, I don’t mind spending a couple of weeks in a nice forest were all I have to worry about are a few bears. But do you honestly expect me to lead my men on a wild goose chase all over creation to catch a nightmare creature from someone’s bad-trip?”

“If you like,” Miller smiled coldly, “I can arrange an interview with Corporal Dietrich; when he’s not screaming, he’s a most convincing witness.”

After studying the drawing of the monster for a few more seconds, Hamill let his eyes roam over to where Hill stood leaning against a tree. The staff sergeant shrugged as if to say, ‘why not?’ 

“Okay, Miller, we’ll find your fairy tail monster for you,” Hamill relented.

“And kill it,” Miller insisted, “there will be no attempt to capture it, the body is to be transported by helicopter to a designated secret location where it can be studied before it’s destroyed.” Miller looked into the eyes of each of the Rangers, “I can’t stress that too strongly, these orders come straight from the President himself, if _anyone_ tries to tell you different contact me or my office immediately.”

“Sure,” Hamill nodded before turning back to Staff Sergeant Hill, “come on Bill, let’s get this circus on the road…”

0=0=0=0

**Cook House Duty.**

It was after dinner and Mary found herself sweeping the area behind the cook-house. Why was she doing this when she should be back at the barrack block cleaning her kit for the next days training? Well that was simple, she was sweeping instead of polishing because her boots hadn’t been shiny enough for the Staff Sergeant. The logic of the situation escaped her (like so many other things in the army), how did sweeping the pathway behind the cook-house help to get her boots up to the required standard demanded by the Staff Sergeant? Sighing sadly, Mary got on with pushing her broom, perhaps Zoe could explain it to her some time.

“Hello Private,” a male voice said from behind her, Mary turned to see one of the male cooks standing only a couple of yards away from her.

Although Festung Ritter was designated a 'Female Recruit Training Facility' some of the instructors (like Staff Sergeant Ballard) and nearly all of the support staff were male. Mostly the male support staff kept themselves to themselves. However, there were a few, like Private Davis, who liked to pressure some of the more vulnerable recruits for sexual favours. 

“Crap,” Mary muttered under her breath; she’d done her best to keep well away from Davis even when she was with Zoe and the rest of her friends.

Davis was the sort of guy that good mothers warned their daughters about. He was the worst kind of bully and believed himself to be a ‘gift’ to women; he didn’t know the meaning of the word ‘no’ and preyed on the weak and insecure. For all her faults Mary was no fool, she knew she was weak which was one reason she never went anywhere alone, just in case she was confronted by some one like Davis.

“Hey Private,” Davis smiled nastily as he advanced on Mary, “what say you and me get together and have a little fun.”

“Y-you keep away from me,” Mary looked around for somewhere to run as she clutched hold of her broom, but she was trapped up against the wall of the cook-house, “I’ll report you…” Mary informed Davis tearfully before adding, “…I’ll scream…”

“I like it when they scream,” Davis grinned as he closed in on the frightened girl.

Pushed up against the wall of the cook-house, Mary tried to fight Davis off but he was too strong for her. He squeezed her breast painfully with one hand as he rubbed her between the legs with the other. His lips pressed against hers preventing her from doing anything more than moan loudly as she tried to wriggle away from him. Closing her eyes, Mary was on the point of giving up when she felt Davis pull away from her. Gasping in surprise she opened her eyes to see that Zoe, Nina and Brandi were all standing looking at Davis.

“Okay,” Davis held up his hands in a placatory gesture, he remembered seeing all these recruits together, they were obviously friends, “I’m sorry, I forgot, she’s your girlfriend I’ll leave you alone…” Davis sniggered, “…unless you don’t mind if I watch?”

Afterwards, Mary wasn’t too sure what she’d seen. The first bit was easy, Zoe had stepped up to Davis and punched him really hard in the stomach. So hard in fact that all the air had rushed from Davis’ lungs and he’d doubled up. Then, and this was the part that Mary didn’t know if what she’d seen was what really happened. Grabbing hold of Davis, Zoe had pulled him upright and then it looked like she’d picked him up and thrown him at a wall about twelve feet away.

Bouncing off the wall, Davis had fallen to the ground and it looked like Zoe was going to pick him up and hit him again. But before she could a couple of cooks came out of the cook-house to see what all the noise was about. The fight came to a rapid halt as Nina and Brandi struggled to stop Zoe from doing anything else to Davis.

0=0=0=0

**Festung Ritter, a couple of days later.**

“Come in, shut the door and sit down, Smith,” Staff Sergeant Ballard looked up from the papers on his desk at the nervous young woman standing in his doorway. “Don’t worry,” he smiled, “you’re not in any trouble,” he waited for Zoe to sit down before continuing, “this is just an informal talk that I like to have with all my recruits from time to time.”

“Yes Staff Sergeant,” Zoe agreed, all the time wondering whether this had anything to do with what she’d done to Davis; she’d done the extra PT and fatigues she’d been given for accidentally breaking his arm.

“You enjoying the army so far, Smith?” Ballard started with the easy questions first, “An’ you can say 'no' if you want,” he laughed, “training’s a bitch but it gets better.”

“I’m good, Staff Sergeant,” Zoe admitted; to be honest she was finding training easy, okay some of the ‘bullshit’ stuff was just that, ‘bullshit’, but she’d sort of worked out that it wouldn’t last forever.

It was people like Davis she didn’t like, wasn’t the army supposed to stop things like what he’d tried to do to Mary from happening?

“Yes you are,” Ballard glanced at Zoe’s records, “you’re in he top ten percent for just about everything…except shooting.”

“Sorry, Staff Sergeant,” Zoe’s shoulders sank a little, maybe she should have done better on the ranges.

“So, Smith, why’d you join the army?” Ballard placed his elbows on his desk and leaned towards Zoe.

“To be the best I could be!” Zoe gave the stock answer; Ballard seemed to be avoiding the Davis incident deliberately.

“Don’t give me that bullshit,” Ballard growled; he glanced at Zoe records, “Say’s here you’re an orphan and a bit of a drifter and this last piece about working in a strip joint…”

“I always used to keep at least a thong on and I never did lap dances or go out back with customers,” Zoe replied defensively.

“But I bet you were tempted,” Ballard pointed out quietly, “I bet the extra money that you could have earnt would’ve made life way easier for you.”

“Yes Staff Sergeant,” Zoe let her eyes slip from the Staff Sergeant’s to study the desk top.

“But you never did,” Ballard continued, “which tells me that you have character, Smith, I bet you really struggled with it and I bet you nearly did, but in the end you came though,” Ballard paused for a heartbeat, “Just like you came through for Benjamin, so, why’d you really join the army?”

“I really did think I could be somethin’ better,” Zoe replied quietly, she’d only done the stripping because she needed the money to live, but it had been getting harder everyday not to do the stuff the other girls did. “I wanted to go somewhere where I was wanted for more than taking my clothes off an’ lookin’ hot.”

“So you enlisted,” Ballard said into the silence that followed Zoe’s words, “I’ve heard worse reasons Smith, you think you might make a career of it…coz I’m here to tell you that if you keep going on the way you are, breaking people’s arms excepted, you’ll be outranking me one day.”

“Never do that, Staff Sergeant,” Zoe smiled uncertainly.

“Don’t you run yourself down Smith,” Ballard decided to change tack, “any problems? You’ve got no family but you seem to be making friends okay…”

Zoe had made a lot of friends she was a popular young woman (particularly after the incident with Davis) but she only had three really close friends. Sage, Herrera and Thomas, all of whom had improved dramatically since they’d been under her influence it now looked like even Sage would complete her training.

“No problems, Staff Sergeant,” Zoe hesitated for a second, “except with Davis.”

“Yeah, Davis,” Ballard signed, “you really shouldn’t have done it like that…anyway how did you do that?”

“Stripper has to know how to look after herself, Staff Sergeant,” Zoe replied with a slight grin.

“Yeah I can see that, but next time,” Ballard almost smiled at the girl across the desk from him, “see me before you put anyone else in hospital…so you got anything you want to ask me?”

“No, Staff Sergeant,” Zoe prepared herself to get up and leave.

“Okay, Smith, you can go now…” Ballard watched as Zoe left his office; he still couldn’t put his finger on it but there was something more to that girl than the other recruits.

0=0=0=0

**The Green Briar Motel, Uberwald.**

Driving his pick-up into the parking lot of the Green Briar Motel, Staff Sergeant Jim Ballard guided his pick-up truck into a parking space and switched off the motor. He sat for a minute watching the darkened parking lot before sighing at his own foolishness. The motel was more than fifty miles away from Festung Ritter, there was no one here who’d recognise him. Opening his door he climbed out before reaching back into the cab for his pack. They had the whole weekend to play with so he’d brought more than just his usual one change of clothes. The corporal instructors where more than capable of looking after the recruits for a weekend without him being there to hold their hands.

Closing and locking the door, Ballard walked across the parking lot to the cabin that they always used. Giving the night one last look he raised his hand and knocked on the door. He heard soft footsteps approach the door from the inside, the door opened and the light spilled out into the night.

“Hi Jim,” a husky female voice called softly from inside the cabin.

“Doreen,” Jim wrapped his arms around the young woman and kissed her on her soft inviting lips before stepping inside and closing the door with his foot.

0=0=0=0

**The Forest.**

Deep in the forest something stirred, it had been sleeping but even sleep didn’t lessen the hunger it always felt. Coming out of its lair it sniffed the night air, there was food nearby and it was time to hunt. It was hungry again, but then, it was always hungry.

0=0=0=0


	3. Chapter 3

3.

_Fought the Russians or maybe the French,_  
Honest I couldn't tell, sir.  
All I knew is they fought so hard,  
They sent us all to hell, sir.* 

*: Rogue's March, traditional.

**Unarmed Combat.**

“Oh come on guys,” Zoe pleaded as she bounced happily from one foot to the other, “attack me will ya!?”

Finding Mary an inadequate sparing partner, Zoe had persuaded all her friends to attack her at once.

“No way, Zoe,” Brandi Thomas groaned as she got up from the surface of the big sand pit where they were training and brushed the sand from her fatigues, “yore just goin’ ta throw our asses all over creation again.”

“Si,” Nina Herrera agreed as she helped Mary to her feet, “I like my butt exactly where it is thank-you!”

“Oh crap,” Mary swayed slightly even though Nina was holding her up, “I feel like my spine's been pushed right through my chest…”

“What’s going on here?” Staff Sergeant Ballard appeared on the scene as the four recruits sprang to attention.

When no one else seemed willing to explain what was going on, Mary stepped forward and told the Staff Sergeant exactly what was going on; they were being used as rubber balls which Zoe was bouncing around the training area and seeing how far she could throw.

“So, Smith you know a little unarmed combat,” Ballard took off his beret and handed it to Mary, “what is it, a little Judo or something?”

“Yes Staff Sergeant,” Zoe replied, over the years she'd picked up the basics of unarmed combat and was pretty good at it, “and…erm…I don’t know what Judo is, Staff Sergeant.”

“I see,” Ballard smiled as he took off his jacket and got down into a fighting crouch, “a street style, eh?” Obviously something Smith had picked up when she was a stripper, “Lets see how you do against me, you know you might find yourself fighting bigger and stronger opponents, lets see what you’ve got…!”

It was only as Ballard felt himself flying through the air that he remembered what Zoe had done to that cook, Davis. This was obviously why Smith had been able to deal with him so effectively. Landing heavily on his back, Ballard groaned as he rolled over and pushed himself up onto his feet again.

“Yuh alright Staff Sergeant?” Brandi asked innocently as she stepped forward holding out a helping hand, “Yuh need a hand there?”

“No I’m fine, Thomas,” dusting himself off Ballard turned to face Zoe, “caught me by surprise there Smith.”

“Sorry Staff Sergeant,” Zoe was once again standing at attention.

“No, no,” Ballard took a step towards Zoe, it felt like his back had been broken in half, “that was good, attack your opponent when he’s not expecting it, now let’s try that agaiiiiiiiiin!”

This time Ballard had the impression of something green coming towards him so fast his eyes couldn’t focus. The next moment he found himself on the ground with Zoe’s legs wrapped around his neck and his right arm being forced back against its elbow joint like it was going to be ripped out of its socket.

“Okay, Smith,” Ballard croaked as he slapped his palm on the ground in sign of submission, “you’ve convinced me; you can let me up now.”

Before he’d even rolled over and started to climb to his feet, Zoe had sprung up and was standing at attention again, she wasn’t even breathing hard. Looking up at Zoe, Ballard had the distinct feeling that he was getting too old for this sort of thing. Finally he got to his feet and brushed himself down, he almost laughed out loud when he saw the worried look on Zoe’s face.

“Very good, Smith,” Ballard stretched and got the crick out of his neck, “you obviously know what you’re doing, I think we’ll have you as our representative for the unarmed combat competition. Now,” Ballard took a deep breath, “instead of hurling your instructor and you’re friends all over the sand pit, how about teaching your buddies here some of those moves, eh?”

“Yes Staff Sergeant!” Zoe cried out.

“Good,” Ballard nodded, “now carry on,” he turned to walk away and found he’d developed a limp to go with his bad back.

Hobbling over to where the other recruits were training, Ballard wondered if he should go and see the medical officer or perhaps just get a posting to the Rangers, it had to be easier than this.

0=0=0=0

**The Forest.**

Running between the trees the creature slowed and sniffed the air, there was meat near by it could smell it, it called to him and it had to have it. The creature’s mouth filled with saliva as it imaged the taste of hot blood in its mouth, the feel of flesh as it ripped its prey apart with its teeth. But even as it imaged its meal the creature knew that it wouldn’t be satisfied, it’d always be hungry however much it ate. The only rest the creature got from its continual hunger was when it slept and even then the thought of food coloured its dreams with pictures of blood and flesh until it had to wake up and hunt again and again and again!

The smooth-skins had arrived on the creature's world uncounted seasons ago. At first the 'People' as the creatures called themselves kept away from the newcomers and there strange artefacts. But one day one of the People ate one of smooth-skins and the People started a long decline that had started hundreds of seasons ago until the creature was the only one of a very few of the People to survive. The People had never been numerous, they were long lived and slow breading as befitted the top land predator on their world, so it didn't take that long (as the People measured time) for their drop in numbers to become apparent. 

It seemed that once a creature had eaten the flesh of a smooth-skin nothing ever tasted as good, you had to have more. But the flesh of the smooth-skins never satisfied the hunger that all of the People now felt. Slowly the People's numbers started to dwindle until now there were only a few creatures left mostly in this area of almost unspoilt forest. They'd always managed to keep themselves unseen by the smooth-skins, killing and eating any that did blunder into them. But sometimes the smooth-skins hunted them with their strange far-striking-weapons and the People's numbers fell even more dramatically.

0=0=0=0

**Another part of the Forest.**

“What you thinking, Captain?” Staff Sergeant Hill asked as he sat on the forest floor next to his officer.

They’d accepted the mission the Intelligence officer had offered them and were now humping about the forest looking for some fairy tale monster. The truth was it was probably some wolves or bears that’d eaten those scouts, whatever was doing it they’d track it down and kill it. Then they’d quietly laugh to themselves when it turned out to be a bear with toothache or something.

“I’ll tell you what I’m thinking,” Captain Hamill shifted slightly so he could see his sergeant better, “I’m thinking about what Captain Miller said.”

“Captain Miller said a lot of things Cap’,” Hill grinned, “now why don’t you clue this ignorant city boy in on what you’re thinking?”

“Ignorant are you?” Hamill eyed his sergeant warily, “Yeah like a wolf’s a vegetarian… No look, I was thinking about what he said about it, what ever ‘it’ is, finding us.”

“Go on, I think I know where you’re goin’ with this,” Hill nodded wisely.

“Look if it’ll come to us why are we humping our asses up and down mountains, through forests and over rivers hoping to bump into it?” Captain Hamill raised a questioning eyebrow.

“I see,” Hill rubbed his face, “what you’re saying is that we should hide up somewhere and lay a trap for this thing?”

“Not so much ‘hide up’,” Hamill laughed quietly, “I was more thinking on ringing the dinner bell!”

0=0=0=0

**A Blood Soaked Camping Ground.**

The creature had fed but it was still hungry. It’d come across the clearing early in the morning. Hiding behind a tree it’d watched the strange metal lodge on wheels for sometime until its hunger could not be denied any longer. It’d run up to the lodge and ripped its way in through the thin metal walls, its prey had screamed and tried to fight but they’d all died swiftly and without causing the creature any injury. Then it had fed, gorging itself on the prey’s flesh, but when the last bone had been broken and sucked dry of marrow it was still hungry. Moving away from the scene of blood and the stench of death, the creature once again sniffed the air. It growled as its stomach rumbled and cried out for food, there was more prey close by. Setting out at a dead run the creature zigzagged between the trees. Soon it would feed again but it would still never be satisfied.

0=0=0=0

**Festung Ritter.**

It was Sunday afternoon and Zoe had no extra duties, she’d felt like some alone time so she was sitting under a tree near the sand pit where they practised unarmed combat or did their early morning PT. Having been sitting there by herself doing nothing for nearly half an hour, Zoe was just thinking that it might be fun to go and see what her friends were doing when… She shivered in the warm air, she had the strangest of feelings someone was coming quietly up behind her. It was odd but she’d been noticing things like that a lot lately. It’d been a long time since anyone had successfully sneaked up on her, perhaps it was a soldier thing? Maybe she was developing those ‘combat skills’ that the Staff Sergeant was always going on about. Not that she’d need them, she was a woman and the Alliance's army didn’t like its female soldiers fighting in anything other than self-defence. Turning quickly, Zoe found herself looking up at Mary who was standing looking down at her from about two yards away.

“Damn-it, Zoe!” Mary signed disappointed at not being able to catch her friend unawares, “You have your own personal radar or something?”

Zoe smiled, not only had Mary’s speech patterns changed in the last eight weeks of training, she was also capable of getting within six feet of Zoe without her noticing. The old Mary wouldn’t have been able to get within half-a-mile of Zoe without her hearing something. Mary came and sat down next to Zoe.

“What cha-doin’?” Mary asked as she got herself comfortable.

“Thinkin',” Zoe replied.

“OH-MY!” Mary cried out, “Call a medic, Zoe Smith is thinking!” Mary giggled and gave Zoe’s shoulder a quick hug, “What’re you thinking about?”

“I’m wonderin' what I’m going to do with my life,” Zoe admitted.

“Same as me, right?” Mary smiled, “Three years of this chicken-shit,” the old Mary wouldn’t have used words like ‘chicken-shit’; Zoe sort of missed the old Mary, but the new Mary was fun too, “then out and back to the real world.”

“The real world, eh?” Zoe replied morosely, “Ya know what the ‘real world’ is for me?”

Mary looked at her friend and nodded, while she had kind of made up with her parents to the point where one day they might welcome her home, Zoe had nothing outside the army.

“I’m not going back to livin' in a one room apartment and strippin' for a living,” Zoe informed her friend, “I’d rather die.”

“Hey,” Mary placed her hand on Zoe’s shoulder, “you’re better than that girl, you can do anything you want…” Mary paused for a second before continuing, “…it’s the real world I’ve come to talk to you about.”

“Yeah?” Zoe turned her head and found herself staring into Mary’s eyes and thinking how pretty they were; it was also a very long time since she’d had sex and Mary was…no, Zoe shook her head and told herself not to go there.

“Y’know that in two weeks time all this is over and we’ll all be going our separate ways?” Mary reminded her.

“Yeah,” it was the one thing that was spoiling the prospect of completing her training for Zoe, when they’d finished here they’d all be sent to different places and her tight little group of friends would be gone.

“Well, I was thinking…” Mary found herself being interrupted.

“Not you too!” Zoe grinned.

“Yeah, I know, it must be catching,” Mary replied with a giggle, “you know we get leave before we have to report for our trade training?” Zoe nodded, “Well, I was wondering, I’ve nowhere to go and I know you’ve got no home to go to, soooo…” Mary’s face split into a wide grin, “…how’d you like to come somewhere with me, it’d be fun!”

“Yeah cool!” Zoe smiled, “Maybe find a couple of guys and have a _real_ good time,” Zoe paused as thoughts of her up and coming leave filled her head to bursting point. “Y’know I’ve been dealin' with business myself for so long that you’re startin' to look good to me about now!”

“Business?” Mary frowned, “I’m looking good to…OH!” Mary blushed, “Well, erm, thanks Zoe but…erm no I…”

“Hey! Sorry man!” Zoe gasped as she realised what Mary thought she was suggesting, “I wouldn’t want to…(well actually she would) if you didn’t want to…you don’t want to, do you?” Zoe asked a little too hopefully, “Coz if you do, I’d like…y’know…I’d be…okay with that.”

“No I don’t want to,” Mary replied studiously not looking Zoe in the eye, “but I’d still like for us to go away together…maybe with separate rooms, y’know?”

0=0=0=0

**Meanwhile back in the Forest.**

Corporal Daniel Jackson, known to all his friends as ‘Danny’ shifted slightly in his hide as he tried to make himself marginally more comfortable. Failing dismally, he signed quietly to himself before putting his eye to the sniper scope on top of his rifle. Down below him, almost half a mile away were the rest of his team. They’d spent nearly two days finding this spot; a long, narrow, steep-sided valley that had been cleared of trees. Trees grew thickly on three sides of the valley making it hard for anything to approach from those directions. If anything did manage it there were enough claymores in the trees to stop a human wave attack. 

The mouth of the valley had been left deliberately clear and the rest of Jackson’s team were making the fullest show of bedding down in the valley and giving the impression that they were going to stay there for days. Pulling back from his SR48 Sniper's rifle, Jackson scanned the rest of the valley. It was then that he saw movement up on the left hand side of the valley. He tried to tell himself that nothing could be up there, how could it have made its way past all those tripwires without setting off at least one mine? Shaking his head sadly, Jackson remembered General Murphy’s Law; basically, if something can go wrong it will go wrong.

Glancing quickly down into the valley Jackson realised that none of his team-mates had noticed whatever it was in the tree line. Captain Hamill had ordered him not to warn of the creature’s approach for fear that it might get spooked and run. Once he was satisfied that it was in fact the ‘monster’ he was to engage and kill it just like they’d been told to. Shifting slightly so he could get the creature in his sights, Jackson noted how the monster was just crouching in the wood line intent on watching his comrades in the valley. If the reports about this thing were to be believed it wasn’t going to get spooked by hearing something moving about in the underbrush, it was more likely to attack. Jackson smiled as he shifted his rifle a little more, the sooner he dealt with this thing the better.

The figure of the monster swam into view in his sight as Jackson got himself comfortable. The thing was standing up now; it must be eight feet tall, he told himself. Although it didn’t look quite like what the descriptions said it should, it had to be the monster they were after. After-all, what were the chances of two eight foot tall monsters being in the same piece of forest? Slowing his breathing, Jackson snuggled up to the butt of his rifle. The creature was right there in his sight-picture, all he had to do was stroke his trigger and they’d all be home in time for supper. Holding his breath, Jackson watched as the creature started to turn away, too late, he told the monster as he exerted gentle pressure on the trigger.

The rifle went off with a loud *Boom!*, the bullet covered the short distance to the creature in less than a heart beat. Watching through his sight, Jackson saw the creature’s head disintegrate and then pulled away from the eye piece to watch the monster’s body roll down the side of the valley towards the camp. Climbing out of his hide, Jackson listened to his buddies shout and run about as they took up defensive positions. It was all too late, of course, he Danny Jackson, had met the enemy and defeated him with one round. A couple of minutes later the team where standing around the body of the monster. Its head had completely gone and its reddish fur was heavily matted with its blood.

“Looks like Danny-boy shot the monster,” observed, Private Stanley Mellish, the units SAW gunner.

“Yeah,” Private Caparzo nodded his agreement, “that’s the thing we’re after, I mean, look at those claws.”

“Okay guys,” Captain Hamill called bringing all conversation to a halt, “lets get that thing bagged and tagged before we call in the chopper and go home.”

As his men moved to break camp and bag up the monster, Captain Hamill looked at the creature they’d killed. It didn’t look exactly like the monster in the drawings now he was close to it. But it did have those big claws, true it was a pity the head was gone so they couldn’t look at its teeth. Perhaps he should send a couple of the guys to take a look around when they'd removed the claymores and see what else they could find. But, like Jackson had said, what were the chances of two eight foot tall monsters wandering around the same piece of forest? As it happened the chances were quite high.

0=0=0=0

**Festung Ritter.**

So this was it, Zoe thought as she checked her pack and equipment, another week or ten days and BMT would be over. Although she’d never doubted that she’d get through the training she knew she’d changed in some subtle ways; she felt surer of herself less ‘lost’ more focused. But before that last down hill stretch that would take her to her end of training parade there was one more challenge, one more hill to climb…Operation Wander.

Tonight sometime shortly after dinner, Zoe and the rest of her intake would be picking up their gear and heading on out into the woods for a weekend of military exercises. Over the next two days and nights they’d be putting into practice everything they’d learnt over the last eight or nine weeks. At the same time they’d be carrying out military operations against Lieutenant Woodbridge’s intake who were also out on their own Operation Wander.

Nothing to it, Zoe told herself, Woodbridge’s intake were a load of pussies that she could take down by herself with one hand tied behind her back. No, the only speck in Zoe’s eye, the only fly in her ointment was the fact that she’d been put in command of her very own fire team. The fire team that contained her three best friends; for the entire weekend she’d be responsible for them, she was the one who would have to decide what to do. Would she measure up? Would she be able to make the big decisions…?

Who was she trying to kid? Laughing at herself, Zoe tightened the straps securing her pack. There’d be no ‘big decisions’, the biggest decision she’d have to make this weekend was who was going to stand guard first. This was basically a walk in the woods with some running around and playing soldiers thrown in, it would be tiring, but ultimately she’d probably look back on it and laugh. Nothing was going to happen, they’d come back on Sunday night and tell each other ‘war-stories’ and joke about all the stuff that'd gone wrong.

0=0=0=0

**The Forest.**

The creature stirred in its lair as the hunger gnawed like a wild beast in its stomach. Soon it would have to rouse itself and go out to hunt. Then it would gorge itself on the flesh and blood of the smooth-skins. But it would never matter how much it ate, how many it killed, it would always be hungry, it would always want more. It’s only release from the hungry that controlled its every action would be death, but it couldn’t die it was cursed to live for all eternity always wanting, never satisfied.

0=0=0=0

**The Forest near Festung Ritter.**

After dinner the intake had picked up their gear, drawn their rifles and thirty rounds of blank ammunition from the armoury and then formed up on the parade ground. Here Lt Lewis had given them a short explanatory lecture on what would be happening over the next couple of days and nights. Once Lt Lewis had finished, Staff Sergeant Ballard had told everyone off into their platoons, squads and fire teams. 

The Intake was organised into a platoon which made up of five sections that were further broken down into two, four woman fire teams, of which Zoe was one of the team leaders. The platoon was to be commanded by the recruit who’d shown the most ‘leadership’ skills with the sections and fire teams also having recruit leaders; Zoe’s section leader was a young woman from Orkla City called Sally Philips. Although the recruits were ‘in command’, Lt Lewis, Staff Sergeant Ballard and the rest of the instructors would always be close by to observe, advise and if necessary take over.

The light was already beginning to fade as Zoe and her team-mates walked out of the main gate, packs on their backs and rifles in there hands. Glancing at one of the barrack huts, Zoe saw the faces of the newest intake of recruits staring out the windows at her and her buddies. She remembered doing much the same thing on her first Friday night at Festung Ritter; she remembered asking herself whether she’d ever make it and become like one of those hardened soldiers moving out of camp and into the forest. Soldier-Zoe chuckled at new-recruit-Zoe and her silly concerns; of course she’d make it, what could stop her?

After marching for almost two miles the head of the column swung off the road and onto a track. They followed this for about another mile as they got deeper and deeper into the forest. It was when the head of the column turned off the, quite wide and well graded, track and onto a narrow forest trail that Zoe began to, not exactly worry but feel concerned. Apart from the little lecture given by Lt Lewis before they'd started out, no one had explained to her where they were, where they were going or what they were going to do once they got there. Were they going to march all night or were they heading for a camp site?

Turning her head and looking into the dark brooding forest, Zoe could see no sign of the instructors, or indeed much of anything else. The edge of the forest was an impenetrable barrier of vegetation. It was fully dark and they were still heading deeper into the forest, working their way up a winding gully. At least here Zoe found she could see further than she’d been able to before. Here the trees had been cut back and there’d been no time for the forest to grow a barrier along its edge. Now Zoe could see into the forest proper because the trees were fairly widely spaced and there wasn’t too much ground cover. 

However, the tops of the trees grew closely together and cut out the moon and star light that helped the recruits see where they were going on the path. A thought came to Zoe’s mind; if they could see where they were going on the trail, couldn’t someone in the forest see them too? Also, as the gully was getting deeper it was obstructing her view into the forest proper. That meant that a few feet away from the gully’s edge Lt Woodbridge’s intake could be waiting ready to spring an ambush on her own intake. Why hadn’t Burns, the recruit in charge of the intake, sent someone to cover the edge of the forest and ensure they weren’t walking into a trap?

Coming to a halt, Zoe stood to one side of the track and let Mary, Brandi and Nina walk by her. As each of her team mates walked by she patted them on the shoulder and whispered a warning; ‘trouble’ she said quietly. Once she was at the rear of her team, Zoe walked backwards for a few yards. As her team was ‘tail end Charlie’ there should be no one behind them, but Zoe had the strongest feeling that they were being followed.

Turning to her front, Zoe trotted up the trail until she was back at the head of her team again. After a couple more minutes walking, when she was just thinking that she’d made a mistake and there was nothing and no one around except for them; there was a soft *Pop-bang-hiss!* from the front of the column. Shocked into inactivity by the sudden noise, Zoe stood and gazed towards the front of the column where there appeared to be a very bright light behind clouds of green smoke.

All was quiet for a second except for the hissing-fizz of the trip flare and smoke grenade someone had set off. Zoe could see the flickering silhouettes of her intake in the light of the flare. Then the spell was broken and Zoe heard someone shout an order just before the night was ripped apart by the sound of a machine gun firing from further up the trail. All of a sudden everything was chaos. Hearing people shout unintelligible orders and rifles being fired wildly at half seen targets in the trees, Zoe was at a loss as to what she was supposed to do. It was then that some primal instinct seemed to take over and suddenly she knew exactly what she was supposed to do.

“Packs off!” Zoe ordered as she shed her own pack onto the track; seeing that her friends had obeyed her order, she started up the bank of the gully, “Follow me!”

Her legs pumping like pistons, Zoe made it quickly to the top of the slope at the side of the trail. Pausing for just a moment she checked that her buddies were still with her before looking up the length of the gully. In the gully itself she could see a mass of struggling recruits, they were shooting in all directions while squad and team leaders shouted orders that went unnoticed or contradicted each other. While all this was going on the ambushers were firing with their machine gun while other members of the ambush party threw coloured smoke grenades and Thunderflashes that exploded with loud bangs and blinding flashes of light. Zoe knew with a certainty that she’d never felt before that had this been real the chances were that only she and her team would still be alive or uninjured, she also knew that only she could save the day.

Running along the edge of the forest where it met the gully, Zoe kept a look out for the ‘enemy’. It didn’t take her long to find them. Not more than twenty yards away, Zoe could clearly see Lt Lewis, Staff Sergeant Ballard and several other instructors lying at the edge of the wood firing and throwing things down onto the struggling recruits below. Bringing her own little force to a halt, Zoe organised them into a four woman firing line.

“Okay,” Zoe spoke loudly enough to be heard over the noise, but not loud enough to give away their position, “on my word we give ‘em five rounds each then charge, okay?”

The three other girls in her team nodded their heads.

“FIRE!” Zoe yelled as she brought her rifle up to her shoulder and started to fire off blanks at the Lieutenant and her team mates.

The sound of the four of them firing five rounds each sounded quite spectacular to Zoe’s untrained ears. As soon as she’d fired her last round, Zoe screamed like a mad woman and charged at the ambush party. Taken unexpectedly in the flank, Lt Lewis didn’t even bother trying to fight off Zoe’s wild attack.

“HOLD IT LADIES!” Lewis yelled over the sound of the panicked firing still coming from the recruits in the gully. 

“OKAY EVERYBODY!” Staff Sergeant Ballard yelled, “CEASE FIRING!”

As the firing died away and the smoke grenades stopped filling the gully with smoke and the flares died out. Lt Lewis walked over to where Zoe’s little group stood still slightly hyped up.

“Who’s in charge here?” Lt Lewis asked as the Staff Sergeant climbed down into the gully to get the recruits organised for the next part of the exercise.

“I am Ma’am” Zoe sprang to attention wondering if she was going to be in trouble for spoiling Lt Lewis’ ambush, “Private Smith, ma’am!”

“Well done Smith,” Lewis’ camouflaged face smiled out of the darkness at her, “If this had been real you’d have killed or driven off my force, well done, now go and join your buddies.”

“Yes ma’am! Thank-you ma’am!” Zoe turned and started to retrace her steps back to where they’d left their packs.

“Hey,” Nina grinned out of the darkness, “when you’re a general you won’t forget about your buddies will you?”

“Yeah,” Mary called quietly, “y’know the girls that helped make you famous.”

“Oh, girls,” Brandi shook her head sadly, “y’forgettin’ once they get famous they always forget the little people they left behind.”

“Shut up you assholes,” Zoe sniggered, “like how could I forget you guys, when I’m a general? I’ll be sure to see ya all get posted to places that ya deserve…like Snowland or somewhere out in the desert or…”

“Bitch!” chorused her three friends just before they jumped on Zoe and dragged her giggling to the ground.

0=0=0=0

Watching from the trees the creature nearly wept it was so hungry. It had hunted all day but had found nothing. Eventually it had left its usual hunting grounds to go into areas that it rarely roamed because there were too many humans there to hunt safely. But hunger had dulled the creature’s caution and now it was sensing many smooth-skins moving through the forest. Maybe, it told itself, maybe some of the smooth-skins would get separated from the main group. Perhaps they would become lost in the forest and when they did, the creature would be there to pounce.

0=0=0=0

Watching from the side of the gully, Lt Lewis and Staff Sergeant Ballard waited as the reorganised recruits made there way out of the gully and on towards their camping ground for the night.

“Perhaps we should have put Smith in charge of all the recruits,” Ballard observed quietly.

“We could have done worse,” Lewis agreed, “but you know as well as I do it wasn’t my choice.”

Which recruit was to command the intake on the exercise was taken out of Lewis’ hands by Colonel Thornbush the commanding officer at Festung Ritter. Apparently one of the recruits was the daughter of an old buddy the Colonel had served with during the Unification Wars; so Thornbush had told Lewis who’d be in charge of the recruits this weekend.

“Not that it really bothers me,” Lewis lied, it did bother her but there wasn’t much she could do about it, “someone like Smith is always going to shine. But you know what does bother me?”

“What’s that, L-t?” Ballard asked as he watched Zoe and her team disappear into the night.

“That Smith will never get the chance to show what she’s really capable of,” Lewis shook her head, sometimes the army really pissed her off.

“You mean the combat thing,” Ballard sighed.

“Yeah the combat thing,” Lewis glanced over at her friend and lover, “you know damn well that Smith's a natural. If she was a guy they’d select her for the Rangers or something, but because she’s a woman she’ll probably spend her career behind a desk or driving an At-vee for some quarter-master somewhere.”

“Hey,” Ballard shrugged, “maybe if she goes into the MP’s, the lines are blurred there…”

“Its still not right, Jim,” Lewis shook her head sadly, “the army is letting talent like Smith's slip through its fingers.”

“Not a lot we can do about it,” Ballard replied resignedly, “except turning out new soldiers the best we can.”

“Yeah,” agreed Lewis, “I suppose you’re right, come on lets get goin’.”

0=0=0=0

The recruits marched on for another two or three miles until they came to a clearing where one of the instructors was waiting for them. They were told to make camp here and be ready to move out just after first light. Before anyone could ask any questions the instructor had vanished back into the trees and the recruits were left to their own devices.

Glancing at her watch, Zoe noted that it was nearly midnight, that meant they had about four or five hours before first light. While two or three hours sleep was fine for her, her friends would need as much sleep as they could get so they’d be able to function properly the next day. Watching what was going on around them, Zoe again noticed that no one told them what to do or where to camp. No one appeared to be organising defensive positions or even a guard for the night. Everyone just seemed to be bedding down where they felt like it; Zoe had even lost the other half of her section.

“Okay,” Zoe sighed quietly as she looked around; her friends were looking at her expectantly and she knew she needed to get them organised. “This way,” Zoe headed off towards the roots of a felled tree about a dozen yards away, “we’ll camp here.”

The tree had been torn from the ground by a storm some time in the recent past. There was a large hole where the roots had been ripped from the ground. The hole was big enough to accommodate all four of them and deep enough to form a good defensive position. Quickly the four young women dumped their packs and then, using their ponchos, pieces of string and lengths of wood they built a little shelter for themselves just as it started to rain.

“Look,” Zoe said quietly as they unpacked their sleeping bags, “we’ve got maybe four hours to morning, like I don’t need to sleep so much so if I can get my head down for an hour now, I’ll do the guard for the rest of the night ‘til dawn okay?”

“You sure?” Nina asked as the rain pitter-pattered on the ponchos above their heads.

“Like I say,” Zoe shrugged, “I don’t need the sleep like you guys do.”

“Okay,” Brandi spoke for the group, “thanks Zoe, but we’ll do the guard tomorrow night.”

“If ya want,” Zoe took off her helmet and curled up on her sleeping bag, “just remember to wake me in an hour, okay?”

0=0=0=0


	4. Chapter 4

4.

_Fifty I got for selling me coat,_  
Fifty for selling me blanket.  
If ever I 'list as a soldier again,  
Devil will be me sergeant.* 

*: Rogue's March, traditional.

**The Forest.**

Crouching at the edge of the hole, Zoe watched the sky as it started to lighten towards the east. Raising a hand she scratched her scalp under her helmet and wished she could take a shower. Showers, however, were more than twenty-four hours away; she’d have to make do with just washing her face and hands later. Checking the sky again, it was now a deep blue, the clouds and rain having cleared about an hour ago. Looking over to where her buddies slept at the bottom of the hole (the shelter that they’d built appeared to have kept everyone snug and more or less dry) Zoe congratulated herself for thinking of taking the time and effort to put the shelter up.

Other people hadn’t, Zoe could see them as the light got better, some people had just thrown their ponchos over their sleeping bags and spent the night slowly getting wetter and wetter by the minute. They’d be spending a miserable day in damp clothes and not having even the four hours sleep her team had managed to get. Checking the sky and her surroundings once more, Zoe decided it was time to wake everyone up; she could see colours properly now so she calculated that it must be getting light enough for people to be able to see things.

“Stand-to,” Zoe whispered as she went around the hole shaking everyone by the shoulder until they woke up.

“W-what?” Mary asked sleepily as she peered up at Zoe from her sleeping bag.

“Stand-to,” Zoe repeated quietly, “grab ya weapon and get up on line.”

“Feck, Zoe,” Mary grumbled, but not loudly enough for anyone outside the hole to hear, “it’s still the middle of the night.”

“Yeah Zoe,” Nina whispered, “it’s like so not time to get up.”

“Yuh read too many war comics when yuh should’a’ bin playing with yuh dolls or somethin’?” Brandi asked.

“Come-on,” Zoe smiled, her guys might be complaining but they were moving, “grab ya weapons its time to play soldier again.”

Grumbling and muttering oaths to themselves, Zoe’s team mates fought their way clear of their sleeping bags, put on their helmets, took hold of their rifles and then took up position around the lip of the hole.

“Can’t see a freakin’ thing,” Brandi complained as she stared into the semi-darkness.

“Shut up an’ listen then,” Nina told her buddy.

“Yeah-yeah okay I hear yuh,” Brandi settled her rifle into her shoulder and watched the world get slowly lighter.

“Oh say can you see,” Mary sang the ancient song quietly, “by the dawn’s early light…”

“No I freakin’ can’t!” Brandi snapped back, “oh, hold up, yeup I can now.”

“Thank god for that,” Nina glanced over her shoulder at her friend, “there was me thinking you’d gone blind.”

“Come on guys,” Zoe pleaded, “take this seriously and watch ya front will ya?”

“Yes ma’am, general, ma’am,” Mary sniggered.

“Thinks she’s some sorta Hector or someone,” Nina added.

Just as Zoe opened her mouth to say something, she noticed that her friends had in fact shut-up and were now watching their arcs of fire for an enemy that they knew would never come. It was now almost full light and they could all see people stirring across the camping ground. Zoe noted that about half the intake’s squads had bothered with the early morning ‘stand-to’, while the others had stayed in their sleeping bags. Just as Zoe was about to tell her guys to ‘stand down’ a loud bang split the morning air waking up those who hadn’t bothered to get up and act like soldiers. Ducking down into the hole, Zoe took cover before cautiously raising her head to take a look around.

“Its okay guys,” Zoe called softly, “it’s just the L-t and the Staff Sergeant.”

“The L-t don’t sound happy,” Brandi observed hearing Lt Lewis yell at someone on the other side of the clearing.

“Ya not wrong,” Zoe agreed.

Indeed Lt Lewis did not look or sound a happy officer, she marched through the camp, with the Staff Sergeant trailing behind her, yelling at people who were still getting out of their sleeping bags and demanding to know where the recruit commander was.

“Everyone okay in here?” Corporal Bell appeared silently out of the nearby forest, she peered under the poncho shelter at Zoe’s little group.

“Yes, Corporal,” Zoe and her team replied, even if they’d been half dead they’d have still claimed to be ‘okay’.

“You look like you've made yourselves a real home from home,” Corporal Bell said as she jotted something down in the notebook she was holding. “Okay you’ve got an hour to sort yourselves out. There’ll be an At-vee coming up with extra water so you can wash-up a little and don’t forget to fill your canteens. In the mean time pack up your gear and cook yourselves some breakfast, it’s gonna be a long day.” Corporal Bell stood up, “Well done Smith,” she nodded to Zoe, “in fact well done all of you.”

“Hey,” Brandi sighed as she watched the NCO walk on to the next little group of soldiers, “we must be doin’ somethin’ right.”

“Yeah and lets keep it that way,” Zoe said in a low voice before starting to issue orders, “Mary ya start cookin’ breakfast for everyone, Brandi ya start cleanin' everyone’s rifles, Nina start taking the ponchos down and roll up the sleeping bags.”

“Typical NCO wannabe,” muttered Nina as she stood up to start dismantling the shelter, “give ‘em some power and they turn into dictators.”

“Yeup,” Brandi nodded, “next she’ll be growing one of those little moustache things.”

“Yeah, while I’m slaving over a hot stove,” Mary began, “what will you be doing, oh great and glorious leader.”

“I,” Zoe stood up and searched out an entrenching tool and a roll of toilet paper, “will be doing what the bears do in the woods.”

With the sound of her friend’s laughter ringing in her ears, Zoe walked the short distance into the tree line. Pausing just under the trees, Zoe looked around, deciding that she was still just a little too close to the camp she moved further into the forest. Here the trees were closely spaced and there was plenty of ground cover so it didn’t take her long to find a little privacy. Halting she placed the roll of paper on a handy branch and started to dig a hole. As she dug, Zoe realised that if she ever got into real combat she’d have to do then exactly what she was doing now. The realisation came to her that when you were squatting over a hole you were pretty exposed (in more ways than one) a girl could get herself shot in the arse if she wasn’t careful. Promising herself she’d never let anything like that happen to her, Zoe got on with her digging.

0=0=0=0

“I am not a happy officer,” Lt Lewis announced as she paused in her tour of the intake’s camp.

“No Ma’am,” Staff Sergeant Ballard agreed.

“We taught them better than this, didn’t we?” Lewis turned to look at Ballard.

“We did, ma’am,” Ballard nodded, “and about two thirds of ‘em look like they listened.”

“Yes-yes I know,” Lewis lost a little of her anger, “but the truth is they all should have listened.”

“I know L-t,” Ballard agreed, “if you don’t mind me saying so it looks like Miss Burns’ is mainly to blame.”

Burns was the name of the recruit that Lewis had been forced to put in command of the intake by Colonel Thornbush. Yes the young woman had played field sports for her school or something; and yes, unusually for a ‘jock’, she’d also done well academically. But her main qualification for command was she was the daughter of one of Thornbush’s old buddies and the Colonel was grooming her for ROTC. 

Lt Lewis had no objection to having a recruit pushed forward if she was any good, but Burns junior was the sort of woman who’d make quite the wrong type of officer. She didn’t pass on information to her troops, her style of ‘leadership’ appeared to be letting her little group of buddies run things while she looked up for her own comfort. When she did bother to show any interest she was a vindictive bully who picked on anyone weaker than she was. If Lewis ever found the recruiting sergeant who’d signed this asshole on she’d rip him a new one.

“Okay,” Lewis signed as she calmed down, “tell me some good news, Jim.”

“Well,” Ballard grinned, “Smith and her team did well as did most of the other teams.”

“Yeah,” Lewis had been watching from the treeline having crawled into position just before first light, “she’d had her team up and ready well before stand-to.”

Once again, Lewis almost screamed with frustration, she’d wanted to put Smith or someone like her (there were several promising recruits) in command but she’d been vetoed by the Colonel. In a way it didn't matter, until women were allowed to take combat command what was the point? Just because Smith and young women like her were women, the army would go on wasting talent.

0=0=0=0

Looking around with something approaching pride, Zoe watched her team as they waited for something to happen. This appeared to be another immutable law of army life; hurry-up and wait. Rush about like your arse was on fire then spend what felt like hours waiting for something to happen. This is what appeared to have happened this morning. Having been told they had an hour to prepare themselves, Zoe had got everyone working. Now everyone had had something hot to eat and drink. Their gear was stowed away, there rifles were clean and they’d all been able to wash, however this was spoilt by having to reapply their camouflage face paint immediately afterwards. Now they were ‘made-up’ and ready to go, so what did they do? Sit around doing nothing for half an hour.

“Look-out,” Nina called, “here comes the L-t and the Staff Sergeant again.”

Shifting position a little Zoe watched as Lt Lewis and Staff Sergeant Ballard strode through the camp and stopped in the centre where the Staff Sergeant climbed up onto a tree stump.

“SECTION AND TEAM LEADERS TO ME!” he yelled across the clearing.

“Looks like you’ve wanted,” Mary pointed out.

“Yeah, okay,” Zoe got to her feet, “probably gonna tell us we can go back to bed.”

“As if,” Mary replied wistfully and watched as her friend headed off towards the Staff Sergeant’s location.

0=0=0=0

“Okay guys!” Zoe called ten minutes later as she came back to her team, “I’ve got the word.”

“Hey, they’re gonna call off this screw-up and we’re gonna spend the rest of the day at a spa!” Nina asked hopefully.

“Not quite,” Zoe smiled as she jumped down into the hole and got out her map.

“A bar?” Brandi asked.

“A mall?” Mary suggested.

“Not even close,” Zoe shook her head, “now listen up, ya don’t want to get lost in the woods.”

Pointing to her map, Zoe explained what was supposed to happen. They were going to march through the forest until they got to the top of the nearby Bear Mountain. From the looks of the map, apart from climbing a couple of thousand feet the route march didn’t look too bad as most of it would be along tracks. They were supposed to reach their objective by midday or early afternoon after which the second part of the day’s activities would begin

“Everyone feel happy about the plan?” Zoe wanted to know.

“Wouldn’t have gone so far as to say happy…” Mary explained slowly.

“Not happy exactly,” Nina agreed, “more not ‘unhappy’.”

“I think yuh could say that we feel ‘tolerable’ about it,” Brandi looked at her comrades who all nodded their heads, “yeup,” Brandi continued with a nod, “we feel tolerable about the plan.”

“Jokers,” Zoe muttered, but before she could add anything Sally Philips, their section leader slid into the hole with them.

“Hi guys,” Sally grinned, “how’s it going?”

“Tolerably!” Mary, Nina and Brandi chorused.

“What?” Sally frowned.

“Don’t mind these assholes,” Zoe said before the others could add anything, “What ya want?”

“Nothing much,” Sally shook her head, “I was just thinking that maybe we should try and act like proper soldiers today…”

“Hey!” Zoe began defensively, but was interrupted before she could say anything more.

“Look,” Sally settled herself down more comfortably, “we’ve been trying, you’ve been trying real hard, but…”

“But?” Zoe raised an eyebrow.

“Last night we lost each other somewhere out on the trail,” Sally pointed back the way they’d come, “let’s try to stick together and work as a team today, eh?”

“Yeah,” Zoe nodded, “I see ya point.”

“Another thing,” Sally looked around to check no one was listening who shouldn’t, “since you bounced the L-t’s ambush last night, Burns has been wanting your guts…”

“Hey! What did I do?” Zoe demanded.

“What she shoulda done!” Sally replied, “You showed her up for the asshole she is so watch your back, okay?”

“Yeah, okay,” Zoe contemplated the unfairness of life, “got that.”

“And another thing,” Sally leaned towards the members of Zoe’s team and lowered her voice, “after last night I wouldn’t put it past the L-t to spring some surprises on us this morning…so keep your eyes open.”

“Got it,” Zoe confirmed.

“Good luck, Zoe, guys,” Sally got up and climbed out of the hole.

“Come-on,” Zoe climbed to her feet, “packs on lets do what the Section Leader says.”

“That girl will end up an officer,” Mary observed as she slipped her arms through the straps of her pack.

“Hey! What about me?” Zoe demanded.

“You,” Brandi looked Zoe up and down, “you’re like my grand-pa…”

“I am not,” Zoe insisted as she put on her own pack, “I’ve seen a picture of your grand-pa an’ I’m way hotter.”

“Whatever,” Brandi sighed, “but yore a professional NCO, yuh’ll never be an officer.”

“Gee thanks,” Zoe picked up her rifle.

“I can see it now,” Mary called as she led the way out of the hole, “RSM Smith, terror of recruits all over the Commonwealth.”

“Yeah right…” Zoe laughed; as she climbed out of the hole she paused to check that nothing had been left behind.

Although they’d spent less than twelve hours using the hole as cover, it had started to feel like home, Zoe almost felt sad about leaving it behind. With a shrug she settled her pack more firmly on her back and walked off after her team.

0=0=0=0

**Fruhlingfeld.**

Looking at the trees that went on, seemingly, forever, Captain John Miller couldn’t help but feel they’d shot the wrong monster. The creature that the Rangers had killed just didn’t look like the descriptions of the creature that’d eliminated his own team and killed those Scouts. He’d also heard that this monster had killed several other parties in the woods, the local law enforcement were still beating the bushes for the killer or killers. Of course he couldn’t tell them that it was pointless and that the army had already dealt with the killer…or had they?

“Lieutenant DeWindt!” Miller called to his aide.

“Sir?” Lt Jo DeWindt stepped out from behind their At-vee and approached his C/O.

“I’m not happy,” Miller told DeWindt.

“Erm, you’re not Sir?” DeWindt replied uncertainly, “Why Sir?”

“I don’t think those Rangers shot the right monster.”

“But…” DeWindt began but stopped himself from saying anymore; he’d had his own doubts about the monster the Rangers had brought down.

“I think we should take one last look around, Lieutenant,” Miller started to walk towards the At-vee, “we do have weapons don’t we?”

“Our sidearms and a couple of AR7’s Sir,” DeWindt found himself scurrying after his Captain.

“Well that’ll have to do,” Miller jumped into the passenger seat and waited for DeWindt to catch up.

After the ‘Santander Fiasco’, the army had reluctantly taken on the role of being the Commonwealth’s monster hunters. Mostly they worked in less well developed countries whose own military forces couldn’t deal with the more unusual threats that popped up every-now-and-again. But occasionally they worked within the borders of the advanced Commonwealth states. So, the army ended up doing a job it was reluctant and ill equipped to do, if they were going to keep on doing it they needed to get themselves organised, have a large well trained force to send after the 'Threats' and the weaponry to deal with them effectively. Having two military intelligence officers wandering around the woods looking for monsters was not the way to go.

“Where to Sir?” DeWindt asked after he’d got he engine started.

“Head towards Fort Knight there’s been reports of something odd in the woods near there,” Miller ordered.

“Roger that, Sir,” DeWindt replied before driving them out onto the road for Fort Knight.

0=0=0=0

**A Day and Night on Bear Mountain.**

The sun was well above the horizon and was even poking up over the tops of the trees by the time the recruits got moving. The lead element, containing the Intake’s great and glorious leader, Private Burns, headed off down the track that led towards Bear Mountain with little thought for those following behind. Very soon the recruits were spread out over nearly two miles of track with the section containing Zoe’s team at the rear.

Of course the sight of such a tempting target was too much for Lt Lewis and her instructors. They fell on the straggling column like savages as the recruits struggled along the forest track. It was after the second ambush had caused most of the column to disintegrate in panic and confusion that Burns realised she was supposed to show some leadership. Unfortunately Burns’ idea of leadership appeared to involve running up and down the column yelling panicked and pointless commands at people.

By mid morning the recruits had split into two distinct groups. At the head of the column were Burns and his cronies, these were followed by the a section or so that had leaders with no initiative and really didn’t know what was going on. The rear of the column was made up of those who were trying to act in a soldierly way and had grown tired of Burns’ continual ranting.

The section that Zoe and her buddies were in was led by Sally Philips, a young woman who’d worked at a petrol station before joining the army. Although she had no previous military experience, she’d not even watched any war movies on TV, she seemed to know instinctively what was expected of her. Keeping her section under tight control she managed to avoid walking into the traps set for her by Staff Sergeant Ballard. In this she was helped by Zoe calling out whenever she sensed that something was wrong. Of course Zoe didn’t know why or how she knew when someone was lying in wait for them but after the third time she’d been proved right Sally really started to take notice when Zoe called out a warning.

Because of the delays caused by the rolling ambush set by the instructors, the recruits didn’t arrive at the rendezvous point until thirteen-thirty. Collapsing in an open area just down from the mountain’s summit, Zoe and her team drank from their canteens and gratefully opened their Compo Rations, walking and fighting (even when it was a sham fight) in the mountain air made them all feel ravenous. Zoe in particular felt hungrier than she normally did, she put it down to all the nervous energy she was expending. As they ate Sally came around to check on them and made sure they were alright.

“I can see that girl with bars on her shoulders before the years out,” Nina announced as she munched her way through her twenty-four-hour ration pack.

“Yeah,” agreed Zoe, “she sure seems to know what she’s doin’.”

“Unlike that asshole, Burns,” Mary put in with particular fervour; Burns had not been one of Mary's favourite people.

0=0=0=0

“Zoe,” Sally Philips called after she’d been away from the section for half an hour seeing Burns, “bring your map, we’ve got a mission.”

“Yo! On it,” Zoe called as she climbed to her feet and walked over to Sally, map in hand.

“Over here,” Sally gestured to a large tree stump; she spread out her own map so Zoe could see. “Okay,” Sally sighed as she took off her helmet and pushed her hair away from her eyes, “our pocket sized military genious wants us to go on a flank march…personally I think she just wants us somewhere where we won’t show her up for the asshole she is, but hey, that’s just me.”

“Right-on,” Zoe agreed with a smile.

“Anyway, here’s the situation,” Sally pointed to a bridge across a river deep in the forest, “Lt Woodbridge’s intake are defending this bridge,” Sally tapped the map with her finger, “if I were them I’d have patrols out in the forest, but I don’t think god’s gift to the General Staff has figured that out.” Sally shook her head in despair, “Whatever, we’ve been tasked to move through the forest and cross the river further up stream from the bridge…”

“Any idea how deep or fast that river is, Sal?” Zoe asked as she studied the little blue line on the map.

“Whadda you think?” Sally gave Zoe a look of frustration before continuing, “we cross the river and then move around behind the enemy position and block their escape when the rest of the company attacks.”

“Sounds great when ya say it like that,” Zoe nodded her head as she studied the map, “but it must be five miles to that bridge all through thick forest,” Zoe looked up at Sally, “Ya sure he’s not trying to get us killed, what does Lt Lewis say about it?”

“According to 'Burnin' Burns',” Sally jerked her head in Burns’ direction, “she’s signed off on it.”

“Okay,” Zoe whistled through her teeth, this just didn’t sound right somehow, “so when do we start?”

“Let’s see,” Sally glanced at her watch and then up at the sky; the weather was warm and sunny after the previous night's rain, “give it thirty minutes for everyone to prepare, check canteens…” Sally opened her mouth to say more but changed her mind, “Hey,” she grinned, “you know what you're doing Zoe I won’t insult you by giving you pointless orders.”

“Say, thanks,” Zoe felt her face blush under her camouflage paint, “I’ll get on with that.”

“And Zoe…” Sally stopped Zoe from going back to her team by placing a hand on her shoulder, “…lets show that bastard we can do this, right?”

“On it, L-t,” Zoe grinned before going back to her team.

0=0=0=0

**Fruhlingfeld.**

Climbing back into his At-vee, Captain Miller sat down and closed the door before turning to look at Lt DeWindt.

“Sir?” DeWindt asked uncertainly.

“Lieutenant DeWindt,” Miller began, “you’re relatively new to the Army, and I expect you still believe that officers are supposed to keep the safety and well-being of the men and women under their command to the forefront of their minds.”

“That’s what they taught me, Sir,” DeWindt agreed.

“Well,” Miller sighed sadly, “I’m afraid in reality that isn’t always so, in fact in my time in the Army I have met a surprising number of ‘Damn-fools’ and I’ve got to say that Colonel Thornbush is a ‘Damn-fool’ of the highest order.”

“Why’s that Sir?” DeWindt asked with a certain amount of trepidation.

“Despite the warning about ‘dangerous animals’ we put out,” Miller signed sadly, “he’s got over a hundred recruits and instructors out playing soldiers on the edge of the danger area.”

“Damn,” DeWindt agreed.

“My feelings exactly,” Miller nodded his head, “however, I refrained from ripping him a new one, but I did get the full details of where and when this fine example of the military arts is taking place.”

Unfolding his map, Miller pointed out the exercise area to DeWindt.

“Today’s exercise is supposed to climax with a battle-royal around this bridge,” Miller pointed at the proposed battle site.

“But that’s actually inside the danger area, Sir,” DeWindt looked up at his C/O.

“Which is why we’re heading up there now Lieutenant,” Miller checked that their AR7’s were in easy reach, “do you think you can find the place?”

“Yes Sir,” DeWindt nodded, “we just go along the main road here,” he pointed at the map, “then follow this track all the way to the bridge…you really think that thing's out there?”

“The more I think about it, Lieutenant,” Miller started to fold away his map, “the more I think those Rangers shot the wrong monster.” Miller gazed off into the endless ranks of trees for a moment, “Now there’s something I never thought I’d hear myself saying…”

“What’s that, Sir,” DeWindt asked as he started the At-vee's engine.

“That the Rangers shot the _wrong monster_!” Miller shook his head in disbelief at his own words.

“Ah, yes Sir,” DeWindt put the Hummer into gear, “I see what you mean.”

0=0=0=0

**Coming down off Bear Mountain.**

Coming down off the mountain, Zoe’s squad had found a narrow winding game trail. It was still hard going but it was easier than trying to find there way through the trees that grew thickly on this side of the mountain. It took them almost an hour to get down off the mountain and onto a flatter area where the trees were more widely spaced. Here the squad spread out from a single file into two fire teams that moved between the trees side by side with Sally’s team slightly ahead of Zoe’s.

The attack on the bridge was supposed to start at eighteen hundred, it was now about fourteen-thirty which meant they had three-and-a-half hours to cover about three or four miles. Normally this wouldn’t be a problem if they’d been on the flat; but here there was still a lot of ‘up and down’ to contend with and streams to cross, plus no one knew just how wide and fast flowing the river at the bridge would be. Zoe and Sally could only guess if they’d need to move further up stream to find a place to cross. It was just after fifteen-hundred when they came to the ravine that cut through the forest and blocked the way ahead.

“Zoe!” Sally called quietly from the edge of the ravine.

“Crap!” exclaimed Zoe as she ran up to Sally and got her first really good look at the ravine, “That’s not on the map!”

“Y’know,” Sally was studying her map intently as she spoke, “unless we’ve taken a majorly wrong turn somewhere, I think you’re right, here…” 

Sally passed Zoe her map to study; taking the plastic covered map Zoe looked where Sally’s finger was pointing, sure enough there was a stream marked but nothing to indicate a ravine. Shaking her head Zoe looked down into the ravine itself. It had to be nearly fifty feet deep. The sides were made up of jumbled, moss covered boulders with the occasional sapling growing between them. Right at the bottom Zoe could see the white water of a rapidly flowing stream as it gushed between the rocks.

“There’s nothing for it, Zoe,” Sally started to fold away her map, “we’ll have to cross it here, who knows how far it stretches either way.”

“Agreed,” Zoe nodded her head as she slung her rifle over her shoulder ready to start climbing, “how ya wanna do this?”

“Okay…” Sally’s voice faded away as she tried to think the problem through, eventually she came up with a solution, “…look, we’ll do it like this; I’ll take my team across first while you watch us in case someone falls. Once I’m across I’ll look out for your team, okay?”

“Sounds good,” to be honest Zoe didn’t have a better idea and up to now Sally had called all the right shots.

Going back to her team, Zoe explained to Mary, Brandi and Nina what was going to happen. Taking up position on the lip of the ravine Zoe watched as Sally’s team climbed down into cleft in the ground. As it happened the ravine wasn’t as bad as it had first appeared, which was probably just as well as they didn’t have any rope to haul people out if anyone had fallen.

Sooner than anyone had expected Sally’s team had climbed out onto the forest floor on the other side of the ravine and it was Zoe’s team’s turn to climb down those slippery looking boulders. Setting her hands and feet carefully, Zoe climbed down towards the tumbling stream at the bottom of the ravine. Although it was hard work Zoe was fit and her other natural abilities helped her make such good time that she was waiting for the rest of her team at the bottom of the cleft.

“Yuh half mountain goat or somethin’?” Brandi asked as she climbed down next to Zoe.

“Must be,” Zoe shrugged, “hey give Nina a hand would...oh feck!”

Zoe found herself almost doubled over in pain, she dropped to her knees clutching at her stomach.

“What’s wrong!?” Brandi asked in panic as she knelt down next to Zoe and put her arm across Zoe’s shoulder, “HEY GUYS!” she called out over the sound of the rushing water, “Zoe’s down!”

Climbing rapidly down the last few feet Mary and Nina quickly formed a concerned huddle around Zoe.

“What’s wrong?” Mary asked urgently as she knelt beside Zoe and looked into Brandi’s worried face.

“I don’t know,” Brandi replied on the verge of panicking, “she was fine then she just doubled up.”

“Period cramps?” Nina suggested.

“I don’t know,” Mary replied uncertainly, “she’s never complained of them before…Zoe honey, what’s wrong?”

“Crap that hurt!” Zoe gasped as she started to un-tense from the ball she’d rolled up into, “Water?”

Quickly, Brandi handed Zoe her water bottle. Drinking the warmish water Zoe felt her stomach muscles un-cramp and she started to breathe more normally.

“Its okay guys,” Zoe started to push herself to her feet.

“What happened?” Mary asked after shushing her friends into silence.

“Don’t know,” Zoe shook her head, “but it felt like someone was twisting a knife in my gut.”

“Period cramps,” Nina reiterated.

“Will you shut up about ‘period cramps?” Brandi snapped before turning back to Zoe, “yore okay to carry on, right?”

“Yeah I’m fine,” Zoe smiled reassuringly, “now let’s get outta here, okay?”

“Okay,” the three other women chorused uncertainly before starting to climb.

Once she was moving again Zoe found herself rapidly getting back to normal, in fact once she’d climbed up the wall of the ravine a few feet it was like nothing had happened. Deciding that unless it happened again it was nothing to worry about, Zoe set her mind to climbing and soon outpaced her friends. Getting to the top of the ravine and climbing out onto the forest proper, Zoe was well ahead of the other members of her team. Standing up and brushing off her hands and knees she glanced over the edge to check that everyone was alright before turning to look around to see where Sally and her team where. Standing there, Zoe could see no sign of the lead team, frowning to herself she moved a little further away from the ravine, still she could see no sign of the other half of her squad. Turning away from the forest Zoe helped her buddies up out of the ravine and checked that everyone was okay.

“Where is everyone?” Nina asked as she noticed the absence of Sally’s team for the first time.

“Maybe they’ve moved on,” Mary suggested as she rearranged her equipment.

“They wouldn’t do that,” Brandi pointed out, “they’d wait for us surely.”

“Hey!” Zoe brought the useless speculation to a halt, “Shut-up will ya?” Zoe thought for a moment, “Brandi, Nina you go down steam fifty paces and me an’ Mary will go up stream fifty, lets check we all came out in the same place, then meet back here, okay?”

“On it,” chorused the other three women.

A quick search of the edge of the ravine brought to light no sign of Sally’s fireteam. Meeting back at the point they’d first appeared from the cleft the four young women looked at each other in confusion.

“Maybe they had to move?” Brandi suggested.

“Yeah, maybe,” Zoe agreed but couldn’t think why their friends wouldn’t wait for her and her team. “Okay, this is what we do; spread out into a skirmish line and we sweep through the forest, make sure ya always in sight of the people nearest to ya I don’t wanna have to start looking for anyone else. If ya see any sign sing out, okay?”

Muttering their agreement the women shook themselves out into a line with maybe three or four paces between each other and started to move forward into the trees. They’d not gone more than a dozen yards when there was a loud panicked scream from over on Zoe’s right which was only cut off when it turned to retching. Heading towards the scream, Zoe found Brandi on her knees retching her stomach contents up as she knelt surrounded by pieces of bloody equipment and broken rifles.

“Oh fecking crap!” gasped Nina as she came to a halt next to Zoe and threw up on the forest floor.

“Oh-no-oh-no-oh-no! This isn't happening,” Mary moaned as she backed away from the scene of blood and death.

Strangely Zoe didn’t feel the need to join the vomit club right at that moment, walking slowly through the blood splattered leaf litter, Zoe’s eyes roamed over the scene of the bloody massacre. Pieces of blood stained uniform and equipment lay all around her as if it had been ripped from the bodies of what had been her team mates. Seeing some thing glint in the sun that streamed into the forest through the trees, Zoe knelt and retrieved a set of dog tags. Slinging her rifle onto her back she used her thumb to wipe the blood off the metal.

“Crap,” she breathed quietly; they were Sally Philips’ tags.

Turning slightly she moved towards the sound that was coming from behind a large pile of branches from a fallen tree. To Zoe’s ears it sound like the noise a dog would make crunching up a bone only louder. Telling herself that she should be running in the opposite direction away from the bear that had obviously killed and was now eating her team mates. Zoe found herself moving slowly and quietly towards the sound of desperate eating. As if of its own accord her hand drifted down to the bayonet on her belt, pulling the weapon she hefted it in her hand. Somehow she knew with a certainty that was blinding in its clarity that she could defeat whatever she found behind that pile of old branches. Stepping around the fallen tree she saw the creature for the first time and her blood froze in her veins.

The creature was gaunt to the point of emaciation, its desiccated skin pulled tightly over its bones. With its bones pushing out against its skin, its complexion the ash grey of death, and its eyes pushed back deep into their sockets, the monster looked like an emaciated skeleton recently disinterred from the grave. What fur it had was tattered and bloody, it looked as if it was suffering from a multitude of suppurations of the flesh; the creature gave off a strange and eerie odour of decay and decomposition, of death and corruption.

For what felt like an eternity, Zoe and the monster stared at each other; while Zoe held her suddenly pathetic weapon in her hand the creature held a bloody, human thigh bone in its bony, claw tipped fingers. Trying to scream and warn her friends, Zoe found that no sound was coming from her mouth. Suddenly the monster moved, discarding its bone it stood up and towered over Zoe. The creature’s action seemed to break the spell that had held her transfixed. Screaming as loudly as she could, Zoe turned about and ran, coming around the felled tree she barrelled into her friends. Frantically she tried to turn them around and push them into motion. At first they tried to resist her and demanded to know what was wrong. The sight of the creature as it appeared around the fallen tree root convinced them that the time for questions had long passed. Crying out in fear and panic they ran back towards the ravine.

0=0=0=0

“MOVE!” Zoe screamed as she took hold of Brandi’s equipment harness and dragged the stunned young woman out of range of the monster’s claws.

The creature followed the four young soldiers as they stumbled away from it, with long rapid steps. Whenever it thought it had a chance of taking one of its prey it would lash out with one of its talon tipped hands, but so far it had only managed to slice into vegetation. Alternately pushing and pulling her friends out of the way of those wickedly sharp, slashing claws, Zoe found herself trying to work out how she was going to kill this hideous monster. For kill it she must, something at the back of her mind was telling her to stand and fight the creature, to beat it into unconsciousness and then rip its head off! But how was she to do that? Pushing Mary ahead of her all she could think of now was how to get herself and her friends away from the thing that seemed so intent on eating them, fighting it was out of the question. Maybe if they had live rounds for their rifles, perhaps then they might have stood and fought the beast, but they only had blanks and their bayonets. Against the monster’s long black claws that was hardly a fair fight.

Taking hold of Mary’s arm with one hand and Nina’s with the other Zoe herded her friends along the line of the ravine and desperately tried to think of what to do to save themselves. Suddenly it came to her, it was blindingly obvious when she thought about it, a simple transaction; her life for that of her three buddies. Pushing her friends onwards and yelling at them to keep running, Zoe dumped her useless rifle, pulled her bayonet and turned to face the creature.

0=0=0=0

**The Bridge.**

“You did what!?” Lt Lewis looked at Private Burns as if she’d grown another head.

“Ma’am!” Burns stood to rigid attention in front of the officer and Staff Sergeant, “I instructed Private Philips to move her squad through the forest to outflank the enemy position.” Burns paused for just a moment as she decided how to make herself look good, she needed to salvage something from the failed attack on the bridge. “Private Philips’ squad was to be in position by seventeen-hundred hours in time to support the main attack on Lt Woodbridge’s platoon. They must have got lost,” Burns put just a little destain into her voice as if to say ‘what do you expect’, “because they weren’t there and the attack failed because of their failings…Ma’am!”

“And you never thought to run this ‘plan’,” Lt Lewis sneered showing how much contempt she had for Burns, “by me and did you really think that Philips’ squad could make four miles in three hours over such rough terrain?”

“Ma’am,” Burns replied without hesitation, “it didn’t look that rough on the map and you did say that I had to show more leadership, Ma’am!”

“I’ll deal with you later,” Lewis snapped, “now get back to your platoon, Private!”

Turning away from the recruit, Lt Lewis kicked at the dirt and cursed herself for a fool; she had indeed told Burns that she had to show more leadership and initiative. But she should still have run this insane plan by her first. If Burns had she’d have said ‘no’, at least not the route that Burns had suggested. Yes from a quick glance at the map the route chosen didn’t look too bad, but; the area through which Philips had been sent was cut up by small rivers and streams. No doubt Philips and the women in her squad had been hung up on crossing the fast flowing streams in this area, the chances were that they’d not turn up for hours yet.

If Burns would have come to her with his plan she’d have ‘suggested’ that Philips and her squad be sent across the terrain to the east of the platoon's route and perhaps reinforce her with one of the other sections. But Burns hadn’t and now she had a squad lost somewhere out in the forest. Taking off her helmet, Lewis ran her hand over her short hair before turning to face Staff Sergeant Ballard.

“Okay,” Lewis sighed wearily, “looks like we’ve got a lost squad, better contact Fort Knight and get some choppers in the air.”

“Shall I get some of the recruits organised to form a search party?” Ballard asked.

“Yeah,” Lewis nodded, she was not looking forward to telling Colonel Thornbush that there were eight recruits lost in the woods, “yeah, tell off a couple of squads from our platoon, people you can trust, okay?” 

Ballard nodded, knowing exactly what Lewis meant; anyone but Burns or his friends.

“After I’ve spoken to the Colonel I’ll ask Lt Woodbridge if he can lend us some of his platoon to help us search…and Jim,” Lewis gave Ballard a tired smile, “mind if I move in with you when they throw me out of the army?”

“Won’t come to that, L-t,” Jim Ballard smiled, “but if it does, well,” he shrugged, “I expect I can find somewhere for you to lay your head…y’know, on the couch or something…”

“Gee thanks,” Lewis almost smiled but quickly sobered; not only was her military career in tatters she also had a lost squad out there somewhere, “whatever, lets get this search organised.”

Just as she was turning away from Ballard to go and find Lt Woodbridge and ask him for some people to help search for her missing squad, Lewis heard the unmistakeable sound of an At-vee coming down the track towards her. Looking in the direction of the sound she saw the vehicle bounce along the uneven track towards her before it came to a halt a few yards away from where she was standing. Turning to see who was out in the wilderness on a Saturday afternoon, Lt Lewis watched as two figures, one a captain and the other a lieutenant, climbed out of the vehicle and come towards her; it was only as they got closer that she noticed the Military Intelligence flashes on the sleeves of their camouflaged jackets.

“Damn,” Lewis sighed quietly as the two officers approached her, “this is all I need.”

0=0=0=0

**The Forest.**

Ducking under the creature’s razor sharp claws, Zoe lashed out with her bayonet, she felt the blade bite into the monster’s flesh and heard its roar of pain as warm, bright blood spurted out over her hand. Jumping back from the monster, Zoe dodged left and right as the creature tried to catch her in its deadly embrace. Dancing out of reach of the thing, Zoe reconsidered her earlier impressions of the monster; yes it was big and those claws and teeth looked real sharp but… But now she’d decided to face it and take it on it didn’t seem to be moving so fast, neither was it as strong as she’d at first thought. It wasn’t going to be easy but she was feeling more confident about taking this thing down.

Dodging a lashing claw strike that would have taken her face off, Zoe buried the blade of her bayonet in the creature’s stomach and cut a six inch long gash in the creature’s flesh before backing off again. The Monster screamed with pain as blood oozed from its wounds and it started to stagger away from her. Seeing that her attacks where having some effect gave Zoe confidence to press home another attack on the now reeling monster. This time instead of attacking with her bayonet, Zoe dummied with her knife and then lashed out with a side kick to the creature’s knee. Feeling and hearing the monster’s bones break under her foot, Zoe cried out in triumph as the creature went down. Her cry of victory however was soon turned to one of pain as the monster struck out at her. Its claws easily sliced through her jacket and cut open her flesh as they raked along her ribs. Groaning with pain Zoe doubled up as she hit the ground blood soaking into her ripped uniform.

Pushing itself up on its good leg, the beast dragged itself over to where Zoe lay momentarily out of action. Pushing itself up until it was more or less standing on its one good leg the creature roared in jubilation and raised its clawed hand to bringing it sweeping down to rip out Zoe’s valiant heart. As it half knelt half stood there in victory the creature cried out in surprise as a stone hit it full in the face. Distracted by the hit, the monster clutched at its bleeding nose and lost all interest in Zoe as more fist sized rocks hit its head and upper body.

Screaming like primitives, Mary, Nina and Brandi advanced on the monster hurling the stones they’d picked up from the edge of the ravine. Seeing her chance to bring this fight to a successful conclusion, Zoe struck out with her bayonet. Ignoring the pain from her side she buried the blade of the bayonet up to its hilt in the monster’s belly thrusting upwards under it ribs. Falling backwards and screaming in pain the monster received an extra large rock in the mouth which knocked out several of it long sharp fangs.

Stabbing again and again, Zoe gave the creature no time to recover as it fell on its back. Now that the monster was down Mary, Nina and Brandi fell on it like primitive tribeswomen striking at its head with stone filled hands while Zoe climbed on top of it and stabbed it again and again in the chest with her bayonet. They beat on the creature for sometime before they realised that it had stopped moving or trying to fight back. Exhausted they fell to the ground panting from their exertions.

“I thought I told you to run,” Zoe groaned as she rolled off the bloody, stinking corpse.

“Hey, man,” Nina gasped as she dropped the stone she was holding and looked at her blood stained hands; she’d never thought she was capable of such savagery, but a friend had been in danger so all bets were off, “couldn’t leave you to fight that thing by yourself.”

“Yeah,” Mary agreed as she wiped blood from her hands onto the legs of her fatigues, “we had to save you from getting your butt kicked, you’ve got to be RSM of the Army or something…we couldn’t let you die here.”

“She’s right, Zoe,” Brandi crawled over to Zoe, “I wanna be fat an’ old and tell my grand-kids that I knew you some day…hey let me see that wound.”

Rolling Zoe onto her back, Brandi pulled pieces of torn uniform away from the long cuts on Zoe’s ribs.

“Crap, man,” Brandi sighed, “that looks bad, does it hurt?”

“Not so much,” Zoe admitted; she wasn’t being brave the wounds didn’t actually hurt that much.

“Better wash it and get a dressing on it all the same,” Brandi reached for her canteen, as she looked up at Mary and Nina, “anyone else hurt?”

After a short pause both young women shook their heads, all the blood on their skin and uniforms belonged to the monster.

“Good,” Brandi started to remove the remains of Zoe’s jacket, “come and help me with Zoe.”

0=0=0=0

**Epilogues.**

**Colonel Brittles’ office, Fort Harkness, some days later.**

“…Lt DeWindt and myself recovered what remained of the creature’s body and had it taken my chopper to the Marine base in San Pedro and then by Air Force transport to our facility here,” Captain Miller explained.

Sitting here in the Colonel’s office on comfortable seats was so different from fighting his way through the forests of Wessex. His choice of specialising in Military Intelligence was partly so that he could avoid the rough and tumble of a normal military career. He did in fact enjoy being in the army and working in intelligence especially, he was good at it and it was because of that very expertise that he’d worked so hard to develop that he’d been recruited into this strange, mysterious little unit.

“And the recruits involved?” Colonel Brittles’ question dragged Miller back from his musings to the reality of the colonel’s office.

“The staff at Festung Ritter and the local media were given the usual cover story,” Miller explained.

“What, gangs on Crystal?” Colonel Brittles smiled.

“No Sir,” Miller laughed gently at the colonel’s little joke, “rabid bear attack.” Miller paused before expanding on his explanation, “We spread the story that an exceptionally large bear had caught rabies and had attacked the Scouts and the party of recruits in the forest, we didn’t mention anything about our own people that had been killed or the Ranger team that shot what we now think was another of these creatures.”

“Hmm, just as well,” agreed the colonel, “what about our people, Captain?”

“Usual cover stories about classified missions and closed coffin funerals,” Miller explained, “as far as the families are concerned their loved ones died defending their country.”

“As they did, Captain,” Brittles nodded his head slowly before repeating, “as they did.”

Colonel Brittles hated having to lie about the deaths of brave soldiers to their families but for now it seemed like the best thing to do.

“And what about these four young women that actually killed the creature?” Colonel Brittles asked.

“Returned to Festung Ritter after medical treatment and debrief,” Captain Miller continued, “they were given a slightly different cover story to everyone else…”

“I would think so,” Brittles smiled, “they got up close and personnel to that thing, the bear story wouldn’t wash with them.”

“We still went with the bear, but this time we told them that it was suffering from some highly infectious disease that could wipe out the entire bear population in the northwest.”

“And they bought that?” Brittles sounded surprised.

“Yes, Sir,” Miller shrugged, “none of them were exactly ‘country girls’ and I was very convincing.”

“What did it cost us?” Brittles asked quietly.

“All things considered Sir, we got off cheaply,” Miller announced, “an extra weeks leave to recover from their ordeal and the choice of trade training in any branch of the army that would take them.”

“Lucky they were recruits,” Brittles mused, “if they’d been more experienced soldiers we might not have got away with it so easily…however, keep an eye on these four will you just in case they change their minds and tell their story to the media or something.”

“Already done, Sir,” Miller acknowledged.

“Good, good,” Colonel Brittles glanced at the folders on his desk before looking back up at Miller, “Captain, in a couple of month’s time I’m being promoted to General…”

“Congratulations, Sir,” Miller replied dutifully, not that Colonel Brittles didn’t deserve the promotion, it was just that Miller had a nasty feeling what the soon to be general was going to ask him.

“Thank-you,” Brittles nodded, “I’m to set up a special taskforce to deal with the Xeno-threat and I’d be needing a good intelligence officer, I was wondering if you and Lt DeWindt would stay on as part of my staff?”

“Oh boy…” Miller breathed softly.

0=0=0=0

**Fort Eustis, Haloga.**

Standing in the shower, Zoe scrubbed vigourously at her hands getting the oil and dirt from under and around her nails. This was the one down side to her training as a driver and mechanic, it was so dirty…and it wasn’t clean dirt like mud, but oil and grease and…well crap in general.

Satisfied that she had got her hands as clean as they were likely to be, Zoe let the water wash the soap off her skin as she ran her hands over her ribs where the bear had wounded her. The wounds had healed up quickly and the scars were fading away to nothing, obviously she’d not been as badly hurt as she and her friends had thought she was, not that she was complaining. When that bear had hit her she’d felt like it'd ripped her open and broken all her ribs on that side.

Stepping out of the shower, she wrapped a towel around herself and went over to look at herself in one of the mirrors over the washbasins. The barracks at Fort Eustis were more up to date than the ones at Fort Knight and there were separate blocks for female and male personnel. Taking another towel she started to dry her hair, as she did so she wondered what her buddies from Fort Knight where doing right now. Mary had gone into ‘Public Affairs’ and had already appeared on a couple of Army recruiting posters. Brandi had gone off to train as a combat medic while Nina had gone into Army Aviation. That Captain Miller hadn’t been lying when he’d said they could have any job they were suited for and the extra weeks’ leave was cool too.

Satisfied that her hair was a dry as she was going to get it with out using her dryer (Zoe had let her hair grow out until it was nearly the same length as it had been before she’d enlisted), she headed back to her room. Here at Eustis you were allowed off base in the evenings and at the weekends and there was a club she wanted to check out with her new buddies.

Life in the Army, Zoe had decided, was cool; she had everything she needed and she had friends that would look out for her as she looked out for them. This was just as well because she’d already been attacked by some Crystal-freak in a fright mask while she was walking home one night; but she’d fought him off and reported the incident to the MP’s. Other than the odd freak attack, Zoe decided she liked the army life. Having signed on for three years she was already thinking of extending her service, she’d see how things went before she made her final decision but for now at least she was here to stay.

The End.


End file.
